transfer student
by Lizzy Faller
Summary: Elisabeth is an orphan who's adopted by Lupin, her godfather, now she's thrown into a new world with new possibilities. time will tell if her new life will be anything less than...magical. please review, i need some good feedback, so i can make it better.
1. the sad begining

_Harry Potter __a fan fiction _

_By Sarah Belk_

_This is a note to Harry Potter fans and my dear fans:_

_This is my first fan fiction I have ever written. I decided to make a Harry Potter fan fiction after reading the sixth book, I thought it was amazing but had a few things I would have liked to change. Some of you will hate me for changing the story around, but I wanted to tell this story through the eyes of a different character all together._

_It isn't my intention to ruin the Harry Potter series, nor is it my intention to ruin the characters JK Rowling had invented._

_My intention for this book is to mainly put my ideas in along with JK Rowling's._

_I hope you like this book, and read it many times over._

_With all my love in the world for JK Rowling's talent to bring these brilliant characters to life, and to inspire me to write my own books I leave you now with my own interpretation of Harry Potter: and the half blood prince._

_Chapter 1_

_Remus Lupin knocked on the door of an orphanage in Ireland. The orphanage was very old with over run vines growing up the wall and dead flowers rotting in the front. _

_An older lady answered the door shortly afterwards, she wore an old black maid's uniform that was long overdue for a thorough washing._

"_Hello sir, what can I help you with today?" she asked as she ushered Lupin in the brightly colored drawing room and seated him in the comfort of a chair. Her voice was very soft and comforting to hear._

"_I'm here to see one of your orphans, she came in here a few months ago. I believe her name is Elisabeth."_

"_well." she said as if pondering the name. "There are a lot of Elisabeths that reside here, do you know how old she would be?"_

"_I think she's around the age of sixteen, her father's last name was Faller, if that helps narrow it down a bit."_

_Without hesitating the old lady started walking up a long corridor towards a huge white marble stair case. _

"_Emma?" she called up the stairs._

_A short time later a very young woman looked down at her from the top railing. She tried to calm down a boy who was crying in her arms._

"_What can I do for you Mrs. Watson?" she asked._

"_I need you to fetch Samira after you're done with Timothy. There's someone here to see her."_

"_Right away Mrs. Watson." she said as she hurried down the hall._

_Mrs. Watson walked back to the drawing room to meet with Lupin once more._

"_Elisabeth doesn't go by her first name any more, she likes to be called by her middle name the name her father gave her, and he called her Samira."_

"_Do you know why he gave her that name?" asked Lupin._

_Mrs. Watson sat on the couch across from where Lupin sat._

"_She didn't say, but then again she doesn't talk much. She never really talked at all since she's been here."_

"_Do you know what happened to her father? Or her mother?"_

"_Her Father came to talk to us a short time before he died, he told us that Samira's mother abandoned them when she was born, and that they didn't have any other family in Ireland at that time. A few weeks past without a word from Mr. Faller, but then her father was found dead in his home, the police are still trying to investigate his death, since is was a little odd how he died."_

"_How exactly did he die Mrs. Watson?" Lupin asked sternly._

_Mrs. Watson looked down as she tried to recall._

"_I remember reading it in the paper that he was killed by what looked like a heart attack. But the police have no clue what could have done it, the people next door said he was as healthy as ever and never showed any signs of illness." _

"_And where was Elis-- I mean Samira at this time?"_

"_She was at the local book store, working as always."_

_The room fell silent for a short time._

"_Are you with the police department Mr.?" Mrs. Watson asked now noticing that she never caught his name._

"_My name is Lupin, and no, I'm not with the police department. I'm merely here to talk to Samira and see if I can adopt her."_

"_Well, in any case would you like a cup of tea or coffee while you wait for Emma to bring Samira here?"_

"_I think tea would be wonderful." Lupin said._

_Mrs. Watson left the room, leaving Lupin all by himself in the drawing room._

_He looked around at the paintings that hung on the walls; most of them were painted by the children who lived there. Lupin stood up and walked towards them to get a better look at them._

_He came to a painting that caught his eye, it was a red bird engulfed in flames, likely to be a phoenix Lupin thought. _

_He read the scribbled name at the bottom of the painting and realized it said __Faller_.

As he backed away from the painting he noticed that most of the paintings were by Samira Faller. And that most of them were paintings of magical creatures and of people that Lupin knew.

He noticed with great shock that she was able to paint Sirius Black in astonishing detail. And at the bottom of the page next to her signature was a small title that said 'an innocent angel'.

Lupin smiled at this title, he missed Sirius after the incident at the ministry and longed to see him again and talk to him.

He continued to stare at the paintings when Emma came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mr. Lupin?" she asked.

He nodded.

Emma walked to the doorway and brought a young girl in.

The young girl was playing with her long blue hair as she walked towards Lupin.

"Mr. Lupin, this is Samira Faller." Emma said, putting both of her hands on her shoulders.

"Samira this is Mr. Lupin, he's here to talk to you, so please be on your best behavior." 

Samira nodded. Then Emma left the two alone as she closed the door to the drawing room.

The two were silent for a long awkward time.

"So I see you like to draw." Lupin said trying to make small talk.

"My father taught me." she said in a low voice.

Lupin sat in the chair again and gestured Samira to sit on the couch.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I was a dear friend of your father's. You look just like your mother, but you do have your father's eyes." Lupin chuckled. "Thank you." she said quietly.

Another long silence filled the room.

"Do you like it here?" he asked.

"As much as a snow owl likes to be caged." she said.

He chuckled a bit at her simile.

"Why are you here?" she asked him.

"Like I said before I was a dear friend of your father's and I just recently heard about his passing. I know you don't know me but your father trusted me with your safety before you were born, and I'm willing to take you back to my home in England."

Samira was shocked.

"I always wanted to go to England, my father talked about it so much, will I be able to go to a school like the one my father took me to?" she sounded very excited now.

"Well what kind school did your father take you too?"

Samira was almost silent.

"It's going to sound crazy." she said. "But he took me to a school that taught magic. I doubt you heard of Durnstrang. " she said under her breath.

Lupin's face lit up, not only was she Edward Faller's only daughter, but she was also a witch.

"Of coarse you can go to a school that teaches magic, I know of a really great school that would take you in."

"What's that?" 

"Hogwarts. It's one on the best school's in all England, many witches and wizards go there, and you can make lots of friends too."

Samira was smiling as Lupin continued to talk about Hogwarts, his home and his friends.

"So when can I come and stay with you?" she asked eagerly.

"Well I can take you home with me today if you'd like."

Samira ran through the corridor and up the stairs into her room at the far end of the long hallway.

"Emma!" she yelled as she packed her rucksack.

Emma walked in with a load of clothes in her arms.

"Is that nice man going to adopt you?" she asked.

Samira closed her rucksack and threw it across her shoulder.

"Yes, he's an old family friend, and he came to take me away to England."

Emma put down her load of clothes and hugged her.

"I'm so happy for you Samira, I wish you the best."

Samira hugged her back tighter.

"I'm really going to miss you Emma." Samira's eyes started to tear.

"Oh, don't cry on my account. But I guess if you are going be gone I might as well give you something."

"You don't have to get me anything."

But Emma left the room before she heard her, when she came back Emma was holding a book.

"Here I want you to have this, I bought it for you after I found out that you were a witch."

Samira took the book from Emma

"It's a potion book. Where did you get this?"

"I got it in my neighborhood a few months ago, I thought you might use if you were ever adopted." Emma paused for a second.

"It should be the book for year six but if not, I'm sure Mr. Lupin would buy you the right one."

"Thanks, Emma. You're a true friend."

Emma gave her one last hug before picking up her laundry again.

"I hope you make your father proud at your new home." she said as she left the room.

Samira sat on her bed for a moment, she looked around to make sure she didn't forget anything. Then after a few minutes headed down the hall and down the stairs, where Lupin stood by the door with Mrs. Watson.

"Are you all set?" Mrs. Watson asked her.

Samira nodded to her and followed Lupin out the door to his car.

Once they both were inside Lupin turned to her and said,

"Forgive my driving, I'm a lot better on broom."

Samira laughed at his honesty, because he drove horribly on the Irish road all the way to a small house in the middle of a long dirt street.

Samira slowly opened the door to look upon the building she would soon call home.

It was a small house with crimson exterior and vast windows on the second floor.

Lupin walked up and opened the dark grey door to the house for Samira to walk in. 

The house was very spacious and had little to no furniture in it.

"I hope you pardon me for this house's décor, but we're not going to be staying here much longer. We're on our way to a friend's house to stay until I receive word of your transfer to Hogwarts."

Samira put her rucksack near the door.

"Are they anyone that I know?" she asked him.

"I'm afraid not, but Arthur does have children your age who are also going to Hogwarts, I think you would like to meet the lot of them."

Samira sat down on the only chair in the large living room.

"I've never really had other witches and wizards for friends before."

"Then I'll make a call to Arthur and see when it's most convenient for us to stop by." Lupin headed to what Samira guessed to be the kitchen.

"Make yourself at home." Lupin called back to her.

"You're joking right?" Samira asked.

But Lupin didn't answer her instead he went over to a small fireplace and pulled out a small bag out of his coat. He proceeded to pour a strange powder into his hand and threw it on the fire. 

Samira looked away. And started to sketch the country side that she saw while on her way to the house. Lupin came back a few minutes later and stood by the kitchen archway.

"Where is the bedrooms at?" she asked.

"They're up stairs to the left." Lupin pointed.

Samira followed his finger to a staircase that was dimly lit, and preceded to clime the stairs slowly.

When she got to the top she looked around for any door that lead to a bedroom.

She came to an opening that had no door to it, but did have a bed inside. She walked in and set her rucksack by the doorway. There was a candle on the end table near the bed and lit it to reveal an almost empty room like the one she was in before. The one thing that she did like was that one of the vast windows almost completely took up one whole wall. Samira walked into the moonlit floor and stared out into the fields that surrounded the house. She strained to make out a town in the distance which Samira thought looked pretty big for an Irish country side.

Just then Samira felt a sharp pain in her stomach, like all of her organs were exploding simultaneously. She let out a great yell and within minutes Lupin rushed thru the opening to find Samira collapsed on the ground. He picked her up and placed her on the bed. As soon as she was out of the moonlight she awoke.

"What happened to me?!" she asked frightened.

Lupin struggled for an answer for a long time then he ran to a small dresser and grabbed a small mirror, that's when Samira saw. Her hair was a dark black and she had grown dog ears. Her eyes changed from her innocent hazel to a horrible bright yellow.

"You're a werewolf." Lupin said. "Just like your father and me." he finished.

"But I don't understand! This never happened to me before, why did it happen now?"

Lupin took back the mirror.

"I think someone knew and gave you a potion before every full moon. Or just kept you from going out into the moonlight. But now that you didn't take it, and you stepped into the dim light you are seeing the aftermath of the accursed moon."

"Can you fix this?" 

"Yes, but you'll have to wait a little bit while I make the potion." Lupin walked back down stairs leaving Samira in her bedroom. 


	2. meeting the weasleys

_Chapter 2_

_Hours passed and Samira soon fell asleep, but her dreams were interrupted by Lupin._

"_What time is it?" she asked groggily._

"_It's around noon; you've been out for a long time."_

_Samira grabbed her head to make sure her dog ears were gone. She gave a small sigh of relief. _

"_I wasn't able to brew up the potion in time to give it to you, but at least you'll have something for next month."_

_Lupin handed her a small corked bottle. She looked at the liquid inside and held the bottle in her hands._

_Lupin left her in her room, but as he left he looked back to her._

"_Just to let you know we're going start heading to Arthur Weasley's house soon."_

"_Thanks, I'll get ready to leave." she called back to him._

_When he was out of sight she started for her bag, she pulled out a pair of bright red trainers and a fresh pair of jeans, she finished her new look with a hot pink tank top. Samira looked at herself in the mirror across the room. She looked at her bright blue hair, then she took to hair band out of thin air and wrapped her hair into a small topknot, loose parts of hair fell to the sides of her face._

_Once again she threw her bag over her shoulder and walked down stairs where Lupin was waiting._

"_Do you know how to use a port key?" Lupin asked._

"_I used one once or twice." _

_Lupin took the port key and put his hand on Samira's shoulder. They both flew into nothingness, Samira spun uncontrollably until she landed on a soft patch of grass. _

_There in front of her was a nice cottage; smoke came bellowing out of the chimney. Lupin led Samira through the gate and up the small path to the door where after a few small knocks from Lupin did a large woman answer the door._

"_Remus!" she cried. "We've been expecting you for a while now. What on earth have you been doing?" _

_Lupin ignored her as he and Samira walked through the door and sat at the kitchen table._

"_Samira, this is Mrs. Weasley, her and her husband live her with her two younger children."_

"_One of my oldest is staying for a while with his fiancé. " Mrs. Weasley said as she served Samira a bowl of soup while she reentered the room._

"_Eat this child, why it looks like you haven't eaten all week."_

_Samira smiled kindly and followed Mrs. Weasley's orders. She didn't complain for the soup was the best she had ever tasted._

_Mrs. Weasley sat next to Lupin and started to make small talk for the sake of breaking the silence._

"_So Lupin, are you going to stay long?" she asked_

"_I'm hoping so, I was wondering if you could take Samira with you when you start to shop for school's supplies with Ron, Ginny, Harry and Hermione. I would be glad to pay for her things."_

"_That would be wonderful, but you know things have been pretty dangerous lately. I will only take her if you think she'll be ok."_

_Lupin stared at Samira who had already finished her bowl of soup and was trying to overhear their conversation._

"_I think she'll be safe with you and your husband looking out for her."_

_There was a knock on the door, Mrs. Weasley answered it in seconds and brought in a girl with dull brown hair and sat her across from Lupin._

"_It's god to see you again Tonks." Lupin said._

_Tonks just gave a small smile and stared at the wooden table._

_Samira felt awkward as she sat there looking at the three adults at the table._

_Samira whispered to Lupin. "Is there something here that I can do, I really don't want to sit here all night ." _

"_Where's Ron and Hermione?" Lupin asked._

_Mrs. Weasley thought for a moment. "I think they're upstairs."_

_Lupin nodded to Samira who thanked Mrs. Weasley for the food and slowly moved backward towards the stairs._

"_What a nice girl Edwards's daughter turned out to be." Mrs. Weasley said._

_Samira climbed up the stairs and looked for any signs of life that there were people upstairs with her. She began to look through every door on her way down the hall, but she was unlucky to find anyone._

"_Can I help you with something?" someone asked behind her._

_Samira turned to see a short girl with red hair staring at her in the middle of the hallway._

_She didn't know really what to say to this red head as she started to open up her mouth._

"_My name's Samira, I came here with Lupin and he told me there was other people here my age." Samira said nervously._

_The girl stared at her for a minute or so._

"_How old are you again?" she asked._

"_I'll be Seventeen in October." Samira said hesitantly._

_The girl walked closer to her._

"_Well I might be exactly your age but I'm close to it, my name's Ginny, I'm the youngest of the Weasley lot."_

"_It's nice to meet you Ginny. Um, Lupin told me there was someone named Ron and Hermione?"_

"_Yes well they're out in the garden right now, but I guess we can talk while we wait for their company again."_

_Samira followed Ginny back into her room._

_Once inside Samira sat on the floor and looked up at Ginny who sat at her desk near the window._

"_So, how many siblings do you have?" Samira asked._

" _Well I have six older brothers."_

_Samira's eyes widened as she heard Ginny say it with such casualty._

"_So that would make you the baby in the family?" _

_Ginny shook her head. "Sadly yes."_

_Samira and Ginny talked about many things from, O.W.L. testing to Hogsmead._

"_So how do you think you did on your O.W.L.'s?" Asked Ginny._

"_I think I did fairly well, but then again I might have been completely horrible, it's really up in the air right now."_

"_So what class did you like the most at your old school?"_

_Samira thought for a minute._

"_I don't know." She answered. " I'm stuck between herbology, charms and care of magical creatures."_

"_You liked care of magical creatures?" the look Ginny gave Samira was as if she grew an extra head._

"_Well, I got to go outside everyday and play with animals, what's not to like about the class?"_

_Ginny sat on the floor next to her._

"_Our class at Hogwarts was pretty dull, but then again I didn't like half the animals anyway."_

_There was a knock at the door and a red headed boy came into the room. Right behind him was a girl with brown frizzy hair._

_Ginny stood up along with Samira and introduced them to her._

"_Samira this is my brother Ron, the second youngest and that's his friend Hermione behind him."_

_Samira smiled at them and exchanged hellos._

"_Did the owls come yet?" asked Hermione._

_Ginny shook her head and faced Samira._

"_Their test scores are supposed to come today by owl, Hermione has been asking all day if the owls came." she explained._

_Ron stepped out of the room. "I'm going to sleep for a while, wake me up when Harry gets here."_

_Hermione turned to the other two girls._

"_That's an interesting color for your hair." she said, staring at Samira._

"_It's a really funny story how it happened. My hair's not naturally this color, it was once brown. But then in my second year of school I got into dueling, it was one of my first matches and I was up against a first year. She tried to hex me with an innocent curse, but it missed. In turn, it hit my hair and turned it blue, from then on it was sort of like my signature look."_

_The three of them laughed as Ginny and Hermione told their stories of Hogwarts._

"_So you're telling me that Ron had to dance with a professor?" Samira laughed._

"_Yep." Hermione giggled. "He looked so horrified."_

"_Not to mention what he wore to the ball, talk about hideous." said Ginny, she went through his wardrobe in excruciating detail._

_Their laughter was interrupted by Mrs. Weasley._

"_I'm so sorry Samira, but Lupin had to leave to meet with the order. You'll have to stay here and sleep in Charlie's old room."_

_Mrs. Weasley walked back down the stairs_

_Hermione stared at her watch. "Well since you're going to stay here, why don't we go and see if Ron's up." Hermione stood up and headed out the door._

_Samira followed her down the hall and up to Ron's attic bedroom. Ginny stayed in her room, she decided to go through everything she would need to buy the next day._

_Ron was relaxing on his bed reading the Quidditch section in __The Daily Prophet_. He didn't take his eyes off the paper while the two girls walked in his room.

They sat there in silence waiting for the boy to finish. 

"For Merlin's sake Ron! If your going to pretend we're not here at least flip the pages from time to time!"

Ron still didn't look at them.

"Is he always like this?" Samira whispered.

"No he isn't," she whispered back. "He's usually very happy to meet new people."

Ron finally put down his paper and stared at the girls. He never seemed to look at Samira while he talked.

"So, what do you lot want to do?" he asked.

"We were hoping you would have something to do." Hermione confessed.

Samira grabbed a book lying next to her and started to read out of pure boredom.

"Fleur and Bill should be hanging out in the garden, maybe we can talk to them." Ron suggested.

"If I have to talk to Fleur anymore than I usually do, I think I'll die." Hermione said. 

Ron tried to change the subject.

" Samira, my mum said you grew up in Russia."

Samira nodded her head and put the book back on the floor.

"Yea, my father wanted me to go Hogwarts, but his job kept him from taking me to England."

Hermione looked at her watch and left the room momentarily.

"Where do you think she went?" Samira asked.

"Probably gone to see if the owls came yet." Ron said as he resumed reading his paper.

"Is there anything exciting in the world today?" Samira asked looking at the headlines.

"Nothing in particular, but I just got done reading about the Holyhead Harpies losing for the fifth time this year,"

"Darn, I was really routing for them. Oh well you win some games, you lose some games."

"I didn't know you liked Quidditch."

"Well, in your defense we just met so I don't think you'd know everything about me."

"What I meant was that you don't look like the type of girl that would be that into Quidditch."

"You're sort of right about that, in my five years at Durmstrang I never played a game of Quidditch in my life, I sort of just stuck to dueling for the most part."

Ron looked at her shocked. "You never played Quidditch?!"

"All I really did was watch. I did try out once in my third year, but there was always one person better than me, I never developed a talent for it."

"Don't worry, when Harry gets here tomorrow, we'll both teach you."

"You really don't have to do that, seriously I'm fine just watching or keeping score."

"Mark my words Samira, before we go to Hogwarts you will play a game of Quidditch."

Samira laughed. " If I play, you'll all be in the hospital wing for the first week of school. I'm that bad, I swear I am."

Hermione came in the room again.

"well since the owls aren't coming tonight I'm going to turn in. I'll see the both of you tomorrow morning, and hopefully Harry will be here so we can start to have some real fun."

Hermione left the room again and headed down the hall to Ginny's room.

"and then there was two." Samira said.

Ron put the paper aside, and stared at Samira.

"why are you staring at me like that?" she asked.

"I'm trying to think where I've seen you before. I'm not that good with faces, but I remember yours, I just can't think of the place yet."

"well maybe if you sleep, you'll remember in the morning."

"what about you? What will you do if I go to bed?" he asked.

Samira grabbed the book from the floor and showed it to him.

"I think I'll catch up on my reading. Maybe draw a little."

"don't you sleep?" he asked.

Samira grinned.

" not very often, but I think about it sometimes." she joked. "but really, I slept the majority of today away, I don't need anymore sleep right now. Maybe I'll get my sleep schedule right before school starts."

Ron chuckled to himself and pulled a blanket over his head.

"good night." he mumbled from under the blanket. Then with a flick of his wand he turned off the lights.

Samira grabbed the book and stumbled out of the dark room and into the hall. She didn't feel like reading, but she didn't want to sleep either.

She walked down the hall to her room for the night. The room was almost empty, except for a few boxes labeled 'Charlie's things'.

She found that her things were already in the room, so she searched in it to find her sketch pad. Samira sat on the windowsill and looked out on the small country side, it had a lot more hills than the small cottage house had, and had an excellent view or the whole sky, not just the moon.

She began to draw when she noticed that there was an aurora off in the distance. She longed to leap from the window and fly to the beautiful lights, but of coarse all that she did was stare at it from afar. 

It must have been hours since Ron went to sleep, because the clock chimed six times before Samira snapped out of her lock with the aurora. 

She saw that it was almost one thirty in the morning. 

"I better get to bed." she said under her breath.

Just the n she heard a loud _crack_ from outside the window. Samira saw two dark silhouettes coming towards the house.

Samira ran to the end of the stairs and knelt down by the stair railing.


	3. following

Chapter 3

Mrs. Weasley welcomed in a tall wizard that Samira knew right away to be the famous Albus Dumbledore, but the boy that followed him was less than recognizable.

Samira realized that Tonks was still sitting at the table, but she seemed sadder than before.

Samira couldn't hear what they were all saying, but it looked like they were exchanging pleasantries.

Samira decided to follow Tonks. She ran to the end of the hallway and jumped out of the open second story window. Pained from the fall, Samira limped around the house to the front. She hid herself in the darkness until she saw Tonks walk a few paces out into the yard.

Samira grabbed Tonks robe and was jetted into a suffocating nothingness. The next thing she knew she was standing in the middle of a small alley way still tightly holding Tonk's robe in her fist. Tonks was facing her, her wand in hand pointing it straight at Samira's heart.

"I'm so sorry, please don't hurt me." Samira pleaded.

"you're Lupin's god child aren't you?" Tonks lowered her wand a little.

Samira shook her head.

"please, don't tell Lupin I was here, he might get mad at me."

"Lupin is the least of your worries, something still seems odd about you."

"what is it about me that can possibly be odd?!"

"well for one." Tonks pointed to Samira's hair. " and also, I find it odd that a girl like you could go to an all boys school like Durnstrang."

Samira turned pale.

"so where did you really go to school?"

Samira took a deep breathe.

"well, you never knew my father, so I can't really blame you for asking. My father was a potion inventor. After he found out that we lived to far away to go to Hogwarts, he made a potion to change my gender, just so I could go to Durmstrang."

"do you honestly think I would believe that crock of lies? Who are you working for? The death eaters?!"

"NO! I'm serious! My father was Edward James Faller! I'm not making this up, I swear"

"Prove it."


	4. proving your innocence

Chapter 4

Tonks led Samira into the small town, holding her wand at Samira's back.

They walked on the black cobblestone roads until they came to a potion shop.

"now, we'll see if you are who you say you are." said Tonks pushing Samira into the dark shop door.

The potion shop was small, and unpleasantly tidy. The shelves were filled with books and potion making gear, which included herbs, eggs, feathers, hair and dead animals.

The man at the counter looked a little older than Samira with icy blue eyes and short black hair spiked up.

"Marshall." Tonks said as she lead Samira to the shelves.

"what can I do for you Dora?" Marshall asked.

"just some potion ingredients, that's all."

Tonks turned to Samira. "hurry up, this town is crawling with death eaters."

Samira gasped as those words left Tonks' mouth. Being in the same town as them made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

"Samira, are you ok?" Tonks asked shaking her.

Samira took a deep breathe, remembering to breathe again. "I'm fine."

Tonks looked at her skeptically. "well hurry up."

Samira scanned the shelves for herbs. She grabbed snake eggs and mares hair.

"you don't happen to have phoenix feathers do you? It's the only thing I need to reverse the potion."

"no sorry, the death eaters cleaned me out of the rare stuff weeks ago." Marshall said.

"then I'll have to wait for it to fade in time." she told Tonks.

"how long do you think that will take?" she asked looking out of the window.

"a few days tops, if I make a small batch." Samira answered.

"well we better hurry, a couple of death eaters are walking down the street towards us."

Samira ran to the counter and dropped everything on the dark oak wood.

"how much?" she said in a hurry.

"no time. We have to go now!" Tonks ran and grabbed a bag and shoved the random items into a large bag. " you never saw us understand. I'll pay you the next time I come around."Marshall nodded. "I'll put it on your tab."

Tonks bowed her head and ran into the back room. She put her hand on Samira's shoulder and apparated out of the room. Samira heard a faint sound of voices as she went into blackness.

Tonks and Samira apparated in front of a small house on the outskirts of town.

"quickly, get inside." Tonks said.

Samira stumbled into the dark house. Tonks followed soon after and lit the room with the end of her wand. The cluttered house made it hard to walk thru, and the light coming from Tonks' wand didn't help much either.

Tonks guided Samira thru the living room to the kitchen.

The kitchen was packed with potion books and potion making equipment.

"you have until tomorrow." Tonks said as she left Samira in the kitchen.

Samira took the items out of the bag and set them up on the table.

She started a fire underneath the cauldron on the counter and pulled her hair back, anticipating the long and hard work ahead.

Hours passed before Samira stopped her work.

She had in front of her a dark green liquid. It bubbled with heat and smelled like lavenders.

She poured out a small glass of the bubbling concoction and drank it.

Almost instantly her hair began to shorten, she became more broad shouldered and taller. Soon she was a perfect example of a Durmstrang student.

She looked at herself in the mirror and realized that she was still wearing

Samira walked into the room where Tonks had entered hours before.

Tonks was sitting in the middle of the room, in a chair reading a book by candle light.

"Tonks?" Samira said.

Tonks jumped at the break of silence. She quickly waved her wand and the room filled with light.

Tonks blinked ay Samira for a moment and looked at her from head to toe.

"impressive." Tonks finally said. "if not for that blue hair, I wouldn't have recognized you."

"so does that mean you believe me?"

"yes, I think so."


	5. a very complicated love story

_Chapter 5_

_Loud knocks awoke Samira from her deep sleep. She looked around to find that she fell asleep aside the wall, as she rose up her neck felt stiff. She turned to see Tonks passed out on the chair she was sitting in the night before. Her hands were hung over the chair arms and her book fell to the floor. Her hair changed from a dull pink to a deep purple while she slept._

_The loud knocks continued as Samira made her way towards the front door._

_Samira walked passed a mirror on her way and saw that the potion she took earlier that night didn't wear off. True, she said it would take a few days, but she took less than she ever took before. Still it was evident that it wouldn't fade in the next five seconds. So she tried to make herself decent enough. She waved her hand and her pants became baggier to fit her better and pulled the tank top she had on earlier off, she thought that she might look a little ridiculous with it on, still there still wasn't any shirt that an actual guy would wear._

_She walked towards the door bare footed and bare chested and opened the door to warm summer air._

_In the front of her was a tall and lanky girl, with long curly platinum hair. Samira couldn't see her eyes because her head was down. She was wearing dark green trainers, a black plaid skirt, a dark green long sleeved shirt and a (slytherin) scarf._

"_Tonks, you have to help me. They're--" she looked up at Samira. Her eyes was a blue as the afternoon sea and sparkled just the same. Samira did in fact know this girl, she took this slytherin girl to the Yule Ball during the tri wizard cup._

"_Vincent?" she asked. "what are you doing here?"_

"_uh, I live here during the summer holidays. What are you doing he--" samira stopped mid sentence at the sight of Claire's face. Tears were streaming down from her icy blue eyes. It hadn't been a few seconds and she was balling, she clanged to Samira and wept._

_Little did Samira know is that the potion didn't just change her gender, it changed her thoughts and feelings slightly._

_Samira put her arm around Claire and held her until Tonks stood beside them._

"_what's going on here?" she asked._

_Claire wiped her tears onto her long sleeve._

"_Claire what's wrong? What did they do now?" Tonks took Claire from Samira's arms and sat her in a chair in sheltered room._

"_can you please close the door Sam--, Vincent? We don't want those death eaters coming around."_

_Samira did as she was told and then stood with her back against the wall and her arms crossed._

_Tonks gave a slight smile in Samira's direction, then turned to Claire._

"_what happened?" Tonks asked._

"_they won't stop!" Claire yelled " they're hunting me down like I was Potter himself! and Tristan won't even acknowledge that I'm his sister." Claire hid her face with her hands._

"_does the mark still hurt?" _

_Claire nodded." all the time."_

_Samira stood wide-eyed as Tonks lifted Claire's sleeve to reveal the dark mark._

"_so you're a death eater now?" Samira asked._

_Claire shook her head. "I'd never become something as vial as that!" _

"_her parents forced her to, they wanted to please you-know-who." Tonks explained._

"_and then I ran away, but now I'm afraid that they'll find me at Hogwarts. That school's all I have left."_

"_you don't have to worry, once you're seventeen you'll be rid of them forever, you'll only have to suffer a few more months." Tonks looked at Claire's arm again. "I'll see if I can get you anything for the mark." Tonks left the room, leaving the two alone. "so Vincent, how have you been these past to years? I'd been trying to owl you for a while."_

_Samira walked to the table and sat across from Claire._

"_I know." she said. "I just didn't have the heart to write back."_

_They sat in silence._

"_I'm sorry about your father, I read about him in __the daily prophet __a few days ago."_

_Samira sank in her chair. "I miss him, I mean you know how we were never that close, but it still hurts that I didn't get to say good bye."_

_Claire reached her hand over the table and touch 'his'. 'Vincent' took her hand in his. they locked eyes._

_Tonks walked in right at that moment and they broke apart._

_Tonks pretended she didn't see anything and put a damp rag over Claire's wrist._

"_this should help the burning for a little bit, but I can't help you all the time. I'll have to go into hiding soon. You-know-who's going to start coming after the order soon."_

"_what about Vincent?" Claire asked looking at Tonks the Vincent._

"_I'll be alright, I'll be at Durmstrang." he reassured her._

_Tonks looked from 'Vincent' to Claire. "well I think I should go and get some breakfast."_

_Tonks left the room towards the door. "you guys behave yourselves until I get back." the sound of a thundering whip came soon after._

"_so here we are again." Claire said. _

'_Vincent' nodded. "I guess so."_

"_so….how have you been? How's your friend Charlie doing?" _

"_he's doing fine." _

"_will you talk to me?!" _

"_what do you want me to say?!" _

"_anything, I know it's been hard for you these past few weeks, but you're not the only one. Just please just talk to me like we used to." Claire pleaded._

"_you and I both know we can't do that."_

"_why?!"_

"_because of what's between us, you probably forgot but I didn't." 'Vincent' walked out of the room leaving Claire sitting at the table still confused._

_He walked to the living room and collapsed in front of the small fire place, it's flames almost completely died out. Tears started falling from his eyes._

_Why am I crying? I don't love her do I? I don't even remember going to the Yule Ball, but somehow, I remember that night._

'Vincent punched the floor until his fists started bleeding.

Claire walked silently into the room and put a hand on his trembling shoulder.

"I didn't know I hurt you so." Claire said kneeling in front of him. She picked his head up and stared into his eyes.

"Claire, I always wanted to write you but,"

Claire silenced him with a small kiss. "that doesn't matter anymore."

_What's going on? This isn't me talking._

Vincent put his arms around her, and held on to her as tight as he could. She did the same.

"I forgot how it feels like to be in your arms." she said. "it still feels nice."

Vincent kissed Claire's neck. Claire looked up at him.

"my feeling never changed since I last saw you." Vincent confessed. "I think that they intensified these past years."

"Vincent." Claire got up and headed back to the door.

Vincent got up and took hold of her hand. "what's wrong?"

"I want to tell you that I still love you but,"

Vincent dropped her hand and turned to the fireplace.

Claire walked in front of him. "you did write to me for two years. I thought you forgot me."

"I told you before I left for Durmstrang, I will always love you."

Claire turned away. Vincent could feel his heart breaking inside his chest.

"who is he?" he asked.

"his named is Draco."

"did your parents put you up to it?"

Claire turned to him again. "no, I fell in love with him on my own. And he loves me as well. He has his problems but we get through them together."

Vincent looked at the dying flames. "I knew you'd move on, I just didn't know it would be like this. I thought I would be at school and you'd write to me telling me, I didn't know we would meet again like this."

"I still love you Vincent."

"no, you can't have two loves at once, because in the end you'll love one more than the other."

Claire grabbed his hand. "but the end isn't here yet, and

I do still love you."

Vincent looked at her again and leaned in to kiss her. She kissed him back. That's when they heard the sound of a loud crack.

"I think Tonks is back." Vincent said with a smile.

"she always comes back at the worst times." Claire laughed. "but I should go now, my brother Xavier might start worrying about me soon." Claire started leaving the room.

"Claire?"

She turned to face him from across the room.

"I wish you luck with you and Draco. And sorry things couldn't work out between us."

Claire lowered her head in valediction and left the room.

Vincent heard the sound of Tonks' and Claire's muffled voices and then the front door being shut.

Tonks came into the back room.

"so, what happened between 'Vincent' and Claire?" Tonks asked.

"nothing you couldn't reading any novel."

"so does this mean I'll be greeted with Vincent's presents anytime later this year?"

Samira sat on the couch. "no, I don't think so I think Vincent's done enough damage for a life time."

"that's good to hear, anyway while I was out I got your transfer papers, it appears you don't have an owl of your own."

Samira shook her head. " my dad wasn't the kind of person that exchanged letters. So I never really needed one."

"well remind me to get you one when we go and get your school books."

"oh no. you don't have to do that."

"nonsense, call it a gift. Besides you got accepted for a transfer to Hogwarts. That's not common."

"thank you, but I need to get my O.W.L.'s before I can even think about school."

"no need, I got that along with your transfer. Lupin sent it to me along with the rest of your things from home. He also added his own letter." Tonks handed Samira the two envelope, one had her full name scripted in the middle, 'Elisabeth S. Faller'. the other was a small and simple light blue envelope with the initials 'S.F.'. she could instantly tell which one was from who.

She put the blue envelope next to her and opened up her O.W.L 's

Ordinary Wizarding Level Results

Pass grades Fail Grades

Outstanding (o) poor (p)

Exceeds expectations (e) Dreadful (d)

Acceptable (a) troll (t)

Elisabeth Samira Faller has achieved:

Dueling O

Care of magical creatures O

Charms A

Defense against the dark arts O

Divination E

Herbology O

Dead languages A

Potions O

Transfiguration O

Samira handed the paper to Tonks. Her mouth fell open.

"this is excellent Samira!" she said.

Samira bashfully lowered her head. "it's really not that great compared to some of the kids at Durmstrang."

Samira looked back down at the blue envelope and held it in her hands. She opened it and read the contents inside.

_Dear Samira,_

_I can not tell you how proud your father would've been to see your O.W.L.'s. and know that every step of your journey that you can count on me to be there for you._

_Remus J. Lupin_

_P.S. tell Tonks that I'm sorry about our last conversation, and hope we both can talk very soon. _

Samira put down the letter with a smile.

"what did he write?" Tonks asked.

She handed the letter to Tonks and watched as her hair went from a deep purple to a sickly pale green. Something that Lupin said must have upset Tonks because now she didn't talk or smile. The air within the room became so tight with tension that Samira couldn't breath. She had to leave theroom, maybe even thehouse if only for a few minutes.

"we'll go shopping for your books tomorrow. going few weeks early will let us beat the crowds and get us some good deals." Tonks said almost emotionless as she folded back Lupin's letter into the envelope.

Samira was sad Tonks was like this.

"Tonks, what did Lupin say to you?"

She turned away from Samira.

"nothing. he said nothing." she said.

Tonks started getting up and headed towards the door.

"I'm sorry Tonks."

Tonks paused at the door. She turned to her. Samira saw that Tonks' eyes were watery.

"you don't have to apologize for something you can't control." Tonks walked out anteroom, leaving Samira all by herself.


	6. going to gringotts

Chapter 6

Samira woke up against the same wall that she woke from the morning before. Once again her neck was stiff and she realized that the potion still didn't fade.

Samira walked into the kitchen to find Tonks sitting drinking cup of tea. Tonks gave a short glance her way. her hair was still a sickly green as it laid against Tonks' pale white skin. 

"you're still a boy I see." she said.

Samira nodded "yeah, I guess so."

Tonks threw her a rugby shirt.

"we're not going to cancel your shopping because of your potion issues."

Samira smiled as she pulled the shirt over her head.

Tonks and Samira walked down the street passed many buildings into a small alley way.

Tonks looked around to see if there was anyone who would see. Once everything was clear, she put a hand on Samira's shoulder and apparated.

When they reappeared they were in front of a big white building. There was many people around who paid little attention to Tonks and her. She spun around as Tonks started walking towards the white building. 

"this is Gringotts Bank. Lupin said that your father put his accents in your own personal account."

Once they entered they were greeted small goblin.

"do you have a key?" he squeaked. 

Tonks tossed small key on the desk. "vault 5196." Tonks said following the goblin who had already hopped down and started for the door.

they made their way through the small passageway until they came to a large silver door.

"vault 5196." the goblin said as he put the key into the lock and opened the door with chilling screech. 

The room was small but filled with many books, furniture and many other family possessions. Almost every corner filled with candlelight as Samira made her way through her father's things.

"just tell me when you're ready to leave." the goblin said as he closed the door.

Samira looked around at everything that was there, that's when her eyes caught a glimpse of movement. She flipped through the piles of potion experiments until she saw what caught her eye. 

It was a picture. She recognized her father right away, but he was sitting next to a red haired women. She was holding a baby in her arms. They were laughing in the photo. She was confuse, she flipped the picture over. The back had small writing on it. Samira read the same sentences over and over again before it struck her.

Edward and Amelia Faller welcoming their child Elisabeth into the world August 2. 

Her eyes widened.

"Tonks!" Samira yelled. "do you see any pictures where you're at?!"

Tonks looked around her. "I see an album but I thinks that's it."

Samira ran to where Tonks was looking. She picked up an old torn leather book. As she flipped through the pages the pictures came alive. She stopped at a picture of her mother. The background was in Paris, she could tell because of the Eiffel Tower in the far distance. 

She continued to flip through more pages until she got to another picture of her. The women looked exactly the same as her at that moment, but instead of his hair being navy blue, it was black with.

She took the picture from the book and held it in her hands. The face smiled back at her and looked away at an unknown person talking to her. 

"is that your mother?" Tonks asked looking at the picture over Samira's shoulder. 

"yeah, isn't she beautiful?"

"just like her daughter." Tonks smiled.

Samira put the picture in her pocket and continued to look around as Tonks added the future spending for the day. 

That's when she saw it. It was a ring, it looked like sterling silver with a small sapphire in the center. As Samira picked it up she could see an inscription a long the inside.

_Nothing's more important right now, besides staying by your side._

She tried it on, a perfect fit. A moment later, she could feel a warm feeling over her body.

"ok Samira, that should beforehand enough for the day plus the train ticket." Tonks dropped the bag as she turned to Samira.

She had changed back to normal, the potion had worn off.

Now Samira looked down to see the clothes that were a little tight before, were now a bit to baggy. She had to keep both hands on her pants so that they didn't fall down.

She saw from the corner of her eye a few strains of hair fall to her face. Her eyes widened, she searched frantically for with her eyes for a reflecting object.

She caught sight of a mirror next to a big armoire. She ran to it and her mouth fell open. Her hair was changed from her beautiful sky blue to her now dark brown. The only thing that showed her old color was a small faint blue streak that hung on her face.

She hated her new hair, it made her skin look pale and her hazel eyes stood out more than ever. 

"I can't believe this happened to me!" she said.

"what did you do from the time I gave you back the picture to now?"

"I found this ring." Samira showed her hand to Tonks.

"that's no ordinary ring." Tonks said observing the silver ring on her hand. "it's a ring laced with a powerful spell I guess it can reverse any spell or potion."

"then all I have to do it take it off right?"

"I would think but then again--"

But Samira didn't' wait for Tonks to finish. She pulled the ring off so hard that she could've taken her finger with it. 

Nothing happened. her hair didn't change and she didn't turn back into a guy. "I don't get it." Samira looked down at the ring. "why didn't it work?"

"well maybe it's the magic." Tonks said. "beside, you look better with brown hair."

Samira shrugged hierophant put the ring into her other pocket. 

As they started to leave Tonks stopped her. 

"before we go." she waved her hand, and Samira's clothes tightened and shortened to her size. 

"thanks."

"do you have everything you need?"

Samira looked around. She ran to the pile of albums and grabbed one. She took one more look around. It was then she realized that this was all she had left to remember her father with.

"ok, I think I'm ready." she ran back to Tonks and thy both walked out of the vault.

"who's that?" the goblin asked.

"what do you mean?" Tonks asked.

"you came in there with a boy."

Samira's heart started racing, how was Tonks going to get them out of this one. 

"you must be mistaken." Tonks explained. "I came in here with her."

The goblin looked closely at Samira.

She pulled a strand of hair behind her ea and gave a nervous smile at him. 

"I'm sorry, I must've been mistaken."


	7. fate, thou art a cruel bitch

_Chapter 7_

_Tonks and Samira walked through the almost empty streets at Diagoon Alley._

"_Is it always this empty?" she asked._

"_Ever since you-know-who came back, people have been trying to stay safe."_

_Samira walked hesitantly down the street looking at the people darting in and out of stores. _

_They both came to their first stop, a bookstore. They entered with bell ring as the door opened. Inside was quiet like library, but was filled with people._

_Tonks handed Samira a list. "Try to look for volume six of all these books."_

"_Where are you going?" _

"_I'm going to see if I can find you some luggage. Your rucksack isn't going to hold everything." Tonks handed Samira a few coins and headed out the store. _

_Samira walked up and down the busy bookshelves. The books were easy to find, but hard to carry. She struggled to grab the potion book from the top shelves, and she dropped every book she was carrying._

"_Do you need any help?"_

_Samira turned to see a tall dark haired boy._

"_I would greatly appreciate it." Samira picked up her books and handed a few to the boy. _

"_Thank you for the help." Samira held her handout to shake._

"_Neville, Neville Longbottom." he took her hand and shook it. _

"_Well thanks again."_

"_What school are you going to?"_

_Samira picked up her divination book. "Hogwarts."_

"_That's cool, I go there. I'm in Gryffindor, you?"_

"_I don't know yet, I'm transferring."_

_Neville looked interested now. "Really? From what school?"_

_Samira tried to remember the story she practiced in case of questions like this. "Beauxbaton."_

"_That school's pretty good, did you go to the tri-wizard tournament a few years back?"_

"_I did actually." Samira added the potion book to the new smaller pile in her hands._

_They moved along the shelves looking for more books._

"_I never asked what you're name was." Neville said._

"_Right, sorry. I'm Samira Faller."_

"_Faller. Faller. That name sounds familiar."_

"_My father was in the daily prophet a few weeks back." she looked ahead, "he died and was one of the abnormally happy stories that day."_

"_I'm sorry about your dad. It seems like more and more people are dying now."_

"_It's fine really."_

"_Well, I'm still sorry."_

_They were able to get every book from Tonk's list and headed towards the counter._

"_Well I guess I'll see you at Hogwarts then?" Neville said._

"_Yeah, I'll look for you." Samira turned to pay for her books and waited for the counter girl to tie the books together. During this time Neville left with an older woman, Samira guessed to be his grandmother. _

_Once the books were tied together, Samira picked them up and headed outside. Tonks waited for her across the street. _

"_I got all the books." Samira said handing back her spare coins. _

"_Well, I was able to get a trunk for you, and while I was at it, I went to the potion store and got your things as well." _

"_So where do we go from here?" _

"_The robe store to fit you a Hogwarts robe and the wand shop, not to mention you need an owl, and I have to stop George and Fred's trick shop--."_

"_Ok, we'll take the day a step at a time." she interrupted. "Let's start at the, wand shop till they came to a boarded up store. The sign above read __Olivander's wands._

"I don't think he's here." Samira said.

"He should be." Tonks knocked on the door.

There was movement from inside.

"Olivander!?" Tonks yelled.

The door opened to reveal an old man.

"Don't yell so loud." he said. "Those death eaters are looking for me."

Tonks and Samira were pulled into the store.

"What can I help you with today?" Olivander asked. He looked rather fidgety as he stepped behind the counter.

"I need a new wand." Samira said.

"Do you remember what your last wand was?"

"An eleven and a half inch cherry with essence of unicorn hair and a horn of an Antipodean Opaleye."

"That's a good wand. Not to small, but not to long either." Olivander pulled out a box and gave it to her. "Try it out before buying it."

Samira gave a small wave of the wand and turned a pile of papers on a small table into bubbles.

"I hope those papers weren't important." said Samira.

"No, I was going to throw those away anyway."

Tonks gave him a few silver and gold coins. And left with box in hand.

"We might want to hurry before we run into trouble." Tonks said.

Their arms were almost practically full as they walked from store to store. They stopped at Madam Malkin's robe store and bought two pairs of robes. They walked down the street towards the sound of screeching and chirping. Tonks led Samira into Eeylops Owl Emporium. They looked through the several cages of owls.

"See one you like?" Tonks asked.

"Not really. They all look pretty scary."

Samira searched the cages until she came to the owl of her dreams. It was a black barn owl with big blue eyes.

"Tonks, think I found the one I want."

After that, finding a cage was easy. Samira bought some owl food and left the shop. As they walked they passed Neville again.

"Hey Samira." he said.

"Hey Neville."

"So I see you're done with your shopping."

"And I see you got anew wand." Tonks said.

Neville looked down at the new wand case and smiled. "Yeah, think it's the last few that Olivander's going to sell." Neville looked around Samira at her new owl.

"Fine bird, you have a name yet?"

Samira shook her head. "I'm stuck between a few names, but I'll figure it out soon enough."

"Are you heading back home Neville?" Tonks asked.

"No, I'm heading over to George and Fred's."

"That's convenient; Samira was heading over there too."

"What about you Tonks?" Samira asked.

"I'm going to put all your things back at my house. I'll meet up with you later."

Tonks left the two sixth years alone in the middle of the street.

"Well, shall we go to the Weasley Wizard Wheezes?" Neville asked.

As they walked they talked about Hogwarts and the main hall and where the common rooms were at. Then they started talking about personal things.

"So do you have a boyfriend that you left behind?" 

Samira shook her head. "Nope, o boyfriend. How about you? Any girl that you'll meet up with when school starts?"

"No! What girl would want to go with friend the most danger prone teen in the entire wizarding world?"

Samira shrugged. "I don't know, I as just making small talk, but I would think that girls like a little danger and adventure. I know I do."

Neville turned slightly red, but he turned so that Samira couldn't see him. 

They walked for a few more minutes until they came to the store

"Ok, we're here." Neville announced.

"How can you really tell? Most of the stores look the same."

Neville pointed to a sign hung in the window.

_Why are you worried about you-know-how?_

_You should be worrying about you-know-poo_

_The constipation sensation that's sweeping the nation._

Samira couldn't help but laugh out loud. Even Neville couldn't help but to chuckle.

"Ok, now I definitely have to see this place." Samira opened the door to the crowded shop.

She could see a wizard behind the counter in a magenta robe. After he looked her way she knew that he was a Weasley.

"Neville!" exclaimed the red head wizard. "No time no see."

"Hey Fred." Neville waved.

Fred Weasley came from behind his counter and walked towards them.

"Who's the cutie Neville?" Fred asked.

Samira blushed a little, but looked the other way.

"This is Samira. She's a transfer student from Beauxbaton."

"Oh? Bonjour belle." Fred picked up her hand and kissed it.

Samira tried not to blush as she tried to reply back. "I don't know that much French, but merse."

"Fred! Try to stop flirting with our customers!" another man yelled from the other side of the room.

"I'm sorry George, I just couldn't help it." Fred looked at Samira with a big smile.

Samira looked down and giggled.

"Well, I have to check more of the shop. So I'll see you both later on." Fred walked back to the counter.

"That guy was interesting." Samira said.

"Yeah, that's one way to describe him." said Neville.

Samira turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright Neville?"

He nodded his head. "Yeah, I guess there are just too many people here."

"Maybe if we walk around, it won't seem so crowded."

Neville smiled at her as they started for a small shelf full of muggle tricks. As the hour passed Samira and Neville bought many things, from the day dreaming potion to the magic Frisbee.

"When is Tonks suppose to meet up with you?" Neville asked.

Samira looked around. "I saw her awhile ago, but she was talking to Fred, or was it George? Anyway I did see her."

"Well I see my grandmother outside, so I think I should go."

"Wait!" Samira grabbed his hand.

They both looked down then broke apart.

"Do you have anyway for me to get a hold of you? We do have a few weeks before school starts, would like to hangout with someone else my own age." Samira waited for his reply.

"Yeah, wait here. I'll be only a minute." Neville ran outside to meet his grandmother.

Samira couldn't tell what they were saying. Neville took piece of paper out of a bag and a quill pen and scribbled something down. He ran back into the store.

"Here, owl me later. Maybe we can meet up." Neville said.

Samira took the piece of paper that he held.

"I'll do that." Samira smiled at him.

Neville looked down at the floor.

'Neville? Are you sure you're?" Samira moved her head to get a better look at his face.

Then out of nowhere Neville's head shot up. This caught Samira off balance, but luckily Neville grabbed her arm before she could fall down.

"Thanks."

"No problem. "Neville started to leave.

Samira started to look around trying to find Tonks. When she felt a presence by her side again. It was Neville.

"Hello again, I--" Samira stopped mid-sentence as Neville leaned in forward and kissed her.

She stood stunned while he stood nervously.

"Well." Neville began. "I'll be waiting for your owl."

Samira nodded her had still speechless.

As Neville left her still stunned and walked away with his grandmother, Samira touched her lips. The warmth of his still lingered on them. She stood there for a moment longer than she smiled in the direction Neville left. But the feeling didn't last long. Right behind Samira was a huge blast.

She turned to see that she wasn't he only person to hear it. Smoke started to flow from the back room. People started to run out as the smoke thickened, but Samira ran toward sit, she couldn't see Tonks anywhere so she knew she went where Tonks was going. The smoke burned her eyes as she fought her way to the door.

"Is someone there?" a man's voice called out.

"Yes," Samira called back. She tried total more but she inhaled mouthful of smoke, and she began to cough uncontrollably.

The smoke parted as George found Samira lying on the ground. He waved his wand around his head and cleared the smoke. He picked up Samira in his arms and carried her into their house above the store.

"Fred, found one." George laid Samira on a small couch.

"How bad is it?" Fred asked.

"She passed out from smoke inhalation. She was running towards the smoke."

She started to wake, her eyes blinked open as she caught the first glimpse of her rescuer. "Fred?"

"Nope sorry. I'm George." he said. "You scared us for a second. I thought you'd be out for awhile."

"Where's Tonks?" Samira tried to stand but she became extremely dizzy and fell back on the couch.

"You might want to take it easy, you just woke up." Fred said.

George looked straight into her eyes. "Tonks is ok. She'll be back in a few minutes. It looks like there's no damage to you at all. You're in perfect health."

"What happened? What was up with the smoke?" Samira asked.

George started. "Our friend mad a small mistake and well, you know what happened."

"What happened to them?"

"She's ok." Fred said. "A little embarrassed about the whole thing. But she's fine. She's trying to fix the problem in the back room. This has never happened to her before. She's really good at making potions.

Samira was able to get up with some help from George. She made her way to the back room.

Claire was there mixing various potions together.

fate, thou art a cruel bitch. Samira thought.


	8. the notsogood news

Chapter 8

Claire turned and looked at Samira with her piercing blue eyes. 

"how's the progress?" George asked.

"well, it didn't get any worse. But I can't guarantee it won't blow up again. maybe if I-no that wouldn't work."

Samira made her way up to the table Claire was sitting at. She picked up a small vial of a dull blue liquid and poured it into another vial of gold.

"I don't think you should be doing that in your condition." George said.

"my father was a potions maker. He taught me a neutralizing potion." Samira corked the vial and shook it. The liquid turned a dark green. She poured it into the caldron, and the bubbling black liquid turned clear.

"thanks. I didn't know what I was doing wrong." Claire stared at the clear water.

"it wasn't anything serious, you must've added to much valerian roots that's all. I could smell it over the boomslang skin. By the way, what exactly _were _you attempting to make? Usually you don't put boomslang in anything but polyjuice potion."

"we were making something like a polyjuice, but with a little twist in it." Claire confessed.

"well maybe next time add a teaspoon of the valerian root to it."

"I'll do that."

Samira got up and started to walk out of the room.

"wait, what's your name?" Claire asked.

"Samira faller."

Claire paused. "do you, have a brother?"

Samira knew what she was getting at. "no, I don't."

Claire nodded and went back to work.

George sat Samira back on the couch in the other room. 

"sit here. I'll bring you something to drink." George walked into the kitchen.

A few moments passed until Claire came out of the backroom. She sat across from Samira.

"there's this guy named Vincent. He has the same last name as you, that's why I asked if you had a brother. I think I broke his heart the last time I saw him."

"do you….want to talk about him?" 

"no not really."

"oh."

There was a short silence.

"it's not like I wanted to hurt him. Honestly." Claire spat out.

"and I believe you." Samira said though she didn't really know why.

"and did he really think I was going to stop my life and be with him? Did he really think that after two years of nothing, not even a letter, that I would come running back to him? Did he not think that I might've moved on?"

"are those rhetorical questions? Please say they are."

"and he had the guts to get mad at me for that. That I would be one of those weird girls that after meeting one guy, wouldn't be with anyone else." 

"hey. Don't be mad at him. He's a guy. All guys are like that."

Claire gave a small laugh. "yeah, I guess you're right."

"plus, you're with another guy. Don't waste your time on this old flame when you have a guy that must truly love you." 

Claire smiled. "yeah you're right."

George walked in with three cups of steaming tea. He sat them down on the table in front of them. 

"Fred's trying to get a hold of Tonk's at the moment." George brought the cup to his lips. 

They sat there drinking tea fro a few minutes while George was talking about future experiments.

Fred came back with a piece of paper in his hands. "ok, I got some good news and some not-so-good news."

George rose from the couch. "what is it?"

"well the good news is, Tonks is at her house and will pick Samira up soon. The bad news, she can't leave just yet. Some death eaters are sniffing around and they might feel her apparate. Not to mention she risked a lot sending the owl, due to the dementors around."

George turned to Samira who was staring at Fred with terrified eyes. "well it looks like you're going to be staying forth night."

Fred walked over to Claire. "I better take you home. Xavier might start worrying about you soon."

Fred and Claire left shortly afterwards. 

"so Samira?" George turned back to her. "you and Neville huh?

Samira felt herself turn a little red. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"please, I'm not blind. I saw him kiss you today."

"can we please just change the subject?" she pleaded. 

George sat back beside her. "awe, cute little Samira's shy about her first boyfriend."

Samira stood up and looked down at him. "for your information, I've had plenty of boyfriends, he's just the first I've actually liked in a while."

"so, you do see him as a potential boyfriend?"

Samira glared down at him. 

"hey you said it not me." George gave an innocent smile.

"what is with you Weasleys and your smiles that make people forget you were being a prat?" 

"I don't know. I guess it's just in the genes." George gave a wide smile.

Samira laughed slightly as she rolled her eyes. She pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket, it was Neville's address. "can I use your owl George?"

"are you going to write love letters to Neville?" he teased.

"can I see it or not?" she tried to be serious but failed miserably because she was practically laughing.

"yeah, sure." George went into the other room and came back with a light brown barn owl, he sat the bird on the windowsill then handed Samira two owl treats. "give one to him before and the other after he delivers the letter. I spoil him like that." he went into the backroom where Samira guessed the beds were. 

she walked up to the bird and petted it's side feathers. It didn't take long for he to find a piece of parchment and it took a shorter amount of time for her to write the letter. She told Neville about her situation and how she wanted to spend the day with him. She also told him where she was staying tomorrow. After she was finished with the letter she sealed it and gave it to the owl. 

The bird ate the small red treat out of her hand, gave a little chirp and flew away.

The night was warmer as George's owl came back with Neville's reply. She opened the small envelope and read his letter.

Hey Samira, I'm glad that you wrote to me. Yes, I would love to hang out with you. I'll come by later tomorrow to pick you up. See you then.

Neville


	9. neville's surprise

Chapter 9

The day was a little different for Samira. She woke on a bed while the twins stayed in the living room.

The room filled with the scent of coffee as Samira walked into the small kitchen. George was leaning against the counter sipping the newly made coffee.

"You sleep ok?" he asked.

"Fine I guess." Samira poured herself some of the heavenly scented liquid into small mug.

"Did you know you talking your sleep?" George asked almost grinning from ear to ear.

"Oh Merlin what did I say?" her eyes widened. "Wait! How do you know that?"

"We had to check on you." George said. "But I didn't know you felt that way about me?"

"Oh Merlin."

George turned to her and moved in closer. "Do you really think I'm a git?"

Samira took a deep breath of relief. So that's what she said in her sleep.

"Well…no, not anymore."

George smiled. "That's good to hear."

She smiled back and glanced around the kitchen. "It's really nice here. Where's Fred?"

"He's sleeping still. He didn't get back till late last night."

"So you're going to run the shop alone today?"

George nodded. "How else will I know when Neville gets here?"

"I might look like an idiot wearing the same clothes from yesterday. But I think Neville will understand."

"Oh, about that. Tonks sent you some clothes over."

"You mean she could send me clothes, but she can't come here herself?"

"I don't know what she thinks." he paused. "I don't think I even want to know." he gave a small laugh.

Samira unfolded the pile of clothes. One dark green shirt, long sleeves with light green designs around the bottom hem. A skirt that came a little above the knee. It was printed with silver stripes down a black cloth. To finish the look came a pair of black converses the came up to the ankle.

"Um, George?"

"Yeah."

"These aren't my clothes. They still have tags on them."

He shrugged her off and walked down stairs to the shop.

Samira quickly got dressed into her new outfit. She checked herself in the mirror. The green in her eyes shown brightly against the green top. She braided two strains in front of her face and pulled them to the back of her head.

She walked down to the shop. George was in his magenta robe stocking the shelves for the busy day. She started helping him with the next shelf.

"Thanks for the help." George said.

"Thanks for the clothes."

He smiled. "I think that's all I had to do before opening." he acted like he didn't hear her. He walked over and unlocked it. "If you want you can light a few lights."

"I don't have my wand."

"It's ok then." George waved his wand and lit the room within seconds. "You know." he turned to her. "Fred and I were thinking about setting up a store in Hogsmead."

Samira remembered Ginny and Neville talk about the small town. "I'm sure you'll get a lot of business down there."

"Yeah, we were both wondering if you wanted a job there. I'll be running it down there while Fred stayed up here. Claire's going to be working there too."

Samira thought about it for a moment. Finally she nodded "I think I would like that, just as long there isn't any explosions."

George laughed. "There won't"

There was a knock on the door. It was Neville. George waved him in. Neville was wearing a pair of jeans, the same trainers from yesterday and a dark crimson sweater.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked Samira.

"Yeah." Samira followed Neville out of the store.

"So where are we going?" she asked.

Neville handed her a broom that was leaning against the wall. "Can you fly a broom?"

"More or less."

"Well hop on, I want to take you somewhere I saw a few weeks ago."

Neville got on his broom and hovered in the air waiting for Samira to follow.

Samira side-saddled her broom and hovered next to him. "Lead the way." she told him.

The wind felt cool against Samira's cheeks as the rode through the miles and miles of town beneath them. About half an hour into the ride they started to descend towards the ground.

Samira jumped off her broom a foot or so away from the ground. Neville did the same. Samira looked around. They were in a small field with a forest on the far end and a lake on the other.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"We aren't technically there yet. Follow me." Neville started heading towards the forest.

Samira followed him to the edge of the forest. Neville stopped and grabbed her hand. "You might get lost, so stay close." he told her.

She squeezed his hand and continued to follow him through the dense woods.

They walked for awhile, stopping at a random tree or creek. That was until Samira heard the trickling of water from a short distance away. Neville led her closer to the sound till she saw the maker. A small waterfall at the base of a small pond. Neville ran towards a large boulder on one side of the falls. Once on top of the massive rock, he waved Samira to dot he same. When she reached the top she realized why he took her here in the first place.

It wasn't the beauty of the pond in the middle of the forest, but the inside of the rocky hill that the waterfall fell from. Behind the waterfall was a large cavern that held the reflected water on its walls like mirrors. The space was arid for it's setting, and the walls and ceiling were roofed with blue and white flowers.

"This place is amazing." she said.

Neville started to walk inside the cavern, kneeling down as he came closer and closer to the water. Samira followed more slowly, looking at every feature about the setting, like it was a beautiful painting that was crafted by Divinci himself.

They both rested near the edge of the falls, looking out into the forest behind a curtain of water.

"How did you find this place?"

"Well, I guess pure luck. You see, I wanted to get away from my gran-gran for an hour or so, and that's when I saw this."

"Well its very beautiful." she put her head on his shoulder.

Neville slowly put his arm around her. They were both nervous, though they didn't know it about each other.

After a few moments in silence of nothing but the water running down into the pond, Neville reached over to the wall and grabbed a flower from its vines.

He put the flower in Samira's hair, which was now wet from the mist coming from the water. Samira gave a small smile and turned her head to hide her blushing face.

Neville reached over and turned her head back to him. He looked deep into her eyes. Then he hesitantly started to lean forward. His lips touched her like a feather passing in the wind. She closed the small gap between them. She locked her hands around his neck and from time to time ran her fingers through his hair. He held his arm around her waist, and the other hand was behind her neck.

They broke apart soon afterward from nervousness. Samira lay down on the cold ground. Neville lay down beside her. She turned her head to him and smiled, he smiled back. She scooted closer to him so she could put her arm around him. He held her hand with his antipathies chin on top of her head, and they both slipped into a deep sleep. Sleeping silently inside each others arms for hours on end.


	10. to hogwarts! finally!

_Chapter 10_

_Samira woke up in Tonk's house. It had been two weeks since her and Neville went to the small cavern, but she still thought about it. She grew nervous about the day ahead for she was to be on the train to Hogwarts that afternoon. Her bags were packed and she silently counted down the hours._

"_Hello Samira." Tonks greeted as she set the table. She was back to being glum and quiet after Lupin came by a week ago. Samira didn't stay long. As she left she grabbed her new broom that Lupin had giving her and headed out the door._

_It was still dark with the sun peaking over the horizon. She rode for around fifteen minutes top speed to the small town near Diagoon Alley. It was quiet and only a few stores were open. She went into a bakery where she bought a few pastries for her and the twins._

_Afterwards she went down the street to the Weasley's store. The door was still locked, so she had to use the back door. The door, Samira could tell, wasn't used a lot because it would stick a thousand ties before it opened._

_The backroom was almost empty as she made her way through. The main store was dark. The only light in the room came from a small street light from outside._

_She pulled out her wand and lit the room with one wave. She then stocked the shelves, and then went up to wake Fred and George._

"_Fred! George!" Samira called as she opened the door._

_Fred came out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and hung on his face._

"_I set up the shop for you guys." Samira said._

"_Thanks." Fred grabbed a shirt and put it on._

"_Where's George?"_

"_He left last night for Hogsmead. He took half the back room with him too."_

"_Oh, well I bought you both some donuts. But if George isn't here--."_

_Fred snatched the bag from her hand so quick she couldn't react._

"_Wow, this stuff is my fave." Fred opened the bag._

_As Fred indulged himself, Samira relaxed on the couch. "Is there anything I can do for a few hours?" She asked._

"_Sure."_

_Samira spent the next few hours doing errands for Fred, and hated every minute of it. She mentally hit herself in the head for asking such a dumb question to a person like Fred. _

_Once she returned to the store, it was busy as usual. As she entered she was intercepted by George._

"_George!" Samira said. "I thought you were gone."_

"_I forgot to give you something, so I had to come back."_

"_You didn't have to get me anything." _

"_Well just think about of it as a gift from me and Fred for welcoming you to the business._

_Samira looked at him skeptically then followed him up to their flat._

_Once there he immediately gave her a box. Samira noticed that there were holes in the box._

"_Oh, Merlin. It's an animal isn't it?" She asked._

"_Just open it and see." George said. He sat in the chair _

_Samira moved herself to the couch and opened the box. Inside was a cute light brown ermine. The fur around its eyes was darkened into a mask-like style, and the tip of its tail was snow white. It was curled up into a small ball steeping silently._

"_Oh, George, it's adorable. Did you name it?"_

_George nodded. "He's name is Audrey."_

_Samira looked back at the ermine. "Thanks George, I promise I'll keep him safe for you."_

_The clock chimed into the room. They both heard someone come up the steps. The door opened to reveal Tonks._

"_Samira, it's time to go. The train will be leaving soon."_

"_right." she turned to George. "Thanks for everything. And I guess I'll see you at Hogsmead."_

"_Yes you will." _

_Samira placed the top back on the box that contained her new precious Audrey and passed George through the door._

_The store became empty as the time of departure drew closer. Samira saw her trunk and her owl Alice waiting for her behind the counter along with Fred._

"_Well." Fred hugged her farewell. "I guess I'll be seeing you around Christmas."_

"_Christmas?" Samira asked._

"_Sure mum will love you to come to our house Christmas day." George said as he came down the stairs._

"_I guess I'll keep that day open."_

"_You better!" Fred laughed._

"_He'll be looking forward to it." said George jokingly. _

_George helped Tonks grab her things and head outside._

"_Well." Samira put her hand on Alice's cage. "Like I said to your brother. Thanks for everything." she gave him a last small hug and kissed him on the cheek._

_Fred's mouth opened as his hand touched his cheek._

"_Don't read too much into it Fred, it was just a friendly kiss."_

"_Whatever you have to say to sleep at night darling." he smiled._

"_Oh Merlin. I'm never going to hear the end of this." she turned and headed out the door. _

"_I'll be counting the days till I'm graced with your beauty." called Fred._

"_I'm sure you will." she called back over her shoulder._

_Once outside George turned to her. "So, when do I get my kiss?" _

_She looked at him in a 'keep dreaming' way._

"_I take that as a no. Well hope you have a good time."_

"_You too."_

_Tonks and her walked down the street and apparated to the train station. _

"_I'll be at the school don't be afraid to talk to me sometime." Tonks tried to give a small smile but failed horribly._

_The train whistle sounded filling the air with more smoke as the last of the passengers said goodbye and loaded._

_She hugged Tonks. "Thank for putting up with me."_

"_Glad to do it again." _

_The whistle sounded again. She turned and waved one last time to Tonks before she entered the train. _

_The train car was filled with people trying to find a carriage_

_She tried to squeeze by a few of them with little to no success. She tapped a red-haired girl on the shoulder to find out why there was such a big crowd._

"_Ay, Harry potter just got on the train." she explained with a thick Irish accent. She pointed to the open windowed carriage. "He's in there with Looney Lovegood and Neville Longbottom."_

"_Thank you." Samira said as she battled her way through the starry-eyes girls to Neville's carriage._

_She lightly tapped nonetheless. Neville turned his head and smiled. He opened the door and closed it shortly after to ensure that Samira and only Samira could come into the small room._

"_Who's that Neville?" Luna asked looking up from her magazine._

"_Luna, Harry, this is Samira." Neville introduced her._

_She gave a small wave. "Um hi." she stared at Harry wide eyed. "I've heard so many stories about you."_

"_All good hope?" Harry laughed._

"_Is it true what __The Daily Prophet _says about you? How you're the chosen one?" 

Harry shook his head. "The prophet likes to exaggerate on a few things."

"I suppose they do at times." Samira sat down next to Luna who was now punching out a pair of glasses from her magazine. She started reading along with her paying almost to little attention to the world around her.

She saw a girl come in and out. She knew it was no one important by the way the other three acted. She saw that Neville looking for something under his seat.

"What are you looking for Nev?" she asked.

"His toad Trevor." said Harry

"Do you think he might need a little help?"

"That would be great." Neville called from under the seat. "It's pretty dark down here and another pair of hands would be very helpful."

Samira dropped down on her knees and started looking underneath the seat with Neville.

The carpet felt soft against her palm as she felt around looking for anything that resembled a bumpy skinned toad.

"Neville I don't think Trevor's under here." 

"I think I got a hold of him."

As Samira was crawling back someone placed a hand on her back.

"Um Samira?" Luna said. "I don't want to alarm you, but there's something moving around in your bag, I think it's naracals."

"Oh Merlin! Audrey!" Samira yelled as she jolted hardheaded, hitting her head on the edge of the seat.

The pain was bearable as she rubbed her head with one hand and opened her bag with the other. The top softhead was scratched so much that the light blue silk that lined it was shredded. Inside curled up in a ball like always, was Audrey. He laid on a pair of Samira's new robes. He looked at her as if to say, 'what took you so long?' 

"I'm sorry." she told him as she held him in her hands. "I meant to take you out sooner, I swear it."

Audrey ran up her arm and rested behind her neck.

"What a cute little ermine." Luna scratched Audrey behind his ear.

It wasn't long till another girl came in with two pieces of paper for Harry and Neville.

"Who's Slughorn?" Neville asked.

"New teacher."

Samira really didn't pay much attention after that and began playing with Audrey and Luna. To her surprise Harry and Neville left soon after, leaving her alone with Ron, Hermione and Luna. Ron and Hermione talked among themselves and Luna began staring out the window.

"Is this what you do? Sit and wait?" Samira whispered to Luna.

"Oh no." Luna began. "But today is rather different."

"Oh-Kay?" Samira reached into her bag and grabbed her sketch book. She drew Luna looking out the window.

"Wow." Luna said looking over her shoulder. "That's really cool."

She smiled. "Do you want it?"

"Sure."

Samira took the picture from the book and handed it to Luna.

"I can't believe it. Does this mean we're friends now? I never had a friend before, but I think this is whetted when they socialize." Luna folded up the piece of paper and put it inside the magazine she was reading before.

"Sure, I'll be your friend." Samira said. "You're a pretty unique chick. I never met anyone quiet like you before."

Between the next hour they both talked about fairies, nymphs and naracals.

"Oh Merlin, there's two of them now." Ron laughed.

"Ron?" Samira faced him. "Do you know when Quidditch tri-outs are?"

"They should be in a few week, but thought you didn't play."

"You're right, I don't, but I could at least try right?"

"Like I said before, it shouldering a few weeks, ask Harry later." 

Down the aisle came an old lady wheeling a cart of various things. She poked her head into their compartment. "Anything from the trolley?" 

"Yeah think I'll have a licorice wand." Ron said.

"Anything for you miss?" she asked Hermione.

"No thanks, I'm not quiet hungry yet."

"I wood like a chocolate frog and a box of magical beans." Luna said.

"Magical beans?" Samira questioned.

"Yes." Luna began. "Haven't you tried them before?"

"No, I never had the pleasure."

"You've never had Berrt's and Bott's magical beans?" Ron asked.

Samira shook her head.

"I think I'll buy you a box." Ron said as he received the other item.

"You don't have to do that." she said.

"Nonsense, you haven't lived till you tried them." Ron said.

He opened the box and split the beans between the four of them. Samira was handed a handful of beans.

"Ok, if you want twice the flavor, put two in your mouth." said Ron. As he said that he put two into his mouth.

"So Ron, how does it taste?" asked Hermione.

Ron looked like he was going to be sick. "Think I got earwax and earthworm." he said sickly.

Samira had second thought on putting these strange beans into her mouth.

Luna ate one. "Yum, I love lemon drops." she said with a smile.

"That's just our luck." Ron started. "Luna gets all the normal tasting ones."

Samira placed two inside her mouth and bit down.

"Well?" Ron asked

"I got a soapy pickle." she said. "And strangely, I like the taste."

"Ha ha, that's hilarious." Ron put two more into his mouth and turned green.

"Vomit?" asked Hermione.

Ron nodded hid head. "And chocolate pudding."

All of them couldn't help but laugh at Ron. After a few hours of this the train whistle sounded.

"It sounds like we're almost there." said Hermione. "We better get out robes on."

As Samira started placing her new robes on the train seat, her eyes fell on Ron.

Hermione took the hint. "Come on space cadet, you have to change too." and her and Ron disappeared round the door.

As Samira was changing her eyes fell on Luna's Ravenclaw badge.

"That's cool." she said pointing to it.

"Well thank you, this is my house badge, you'll get one soon too."

Hermione came back in. "Samira you'll go with the first years and prefects." she said. "You'll have to come with me now."

"Have fun." said Luna as she left the train through the opposite aisle.

Samira followed Hermione down a small road lined with floating lanterns to a lake with hundreds of boats.

"You'll go on a boat with me." said Hermione.

"Well if it isn't the mudblood Granger." said a boy a few boats away.

"Malloy." Hermione said between grinding teeth.

"Wait, did he just call you a--" Samira started.

"Mudblood!" Draco said again. "Are you teaching another mudblood to become a know-it-all piece of scum like you?"

Draco was now walking towards them. Samira could see tears swell up in Hermione's eyes.

"Take that back!" Samira met him half way.

"Samira don't bother." Hermione wiped tears from her eyes. "Don't waste time on him. Just get back on the boat." 

Samira didn't pay attention. "Take it back."

"And what I don't?" Draco asked smugly.

Samira pulled out her wand and aimed it between his eyes.

"Samira! Don't! You'll get expelled!" Hermione yelled.

The large group of first years and the other prefects started to come down the road towards them. Samira saw and lowered her wand.

"That's just what I would expect from a mud-"Draco was hit in the eye with Samira's fist.

"If you ever even utter that word again, I promise you won't be able to utter anything else."

"Those are bit words for a, mudblood!"

Samira was about to hit him again, until she saw Claire start walking up towards them.

"Hello Draco." Claire said, kissing him on the cheek.

Samira was about to leave, but decided to say one more thing. "Oh, Draco, you should know that I'm not what you thin I am. Indeed I'm quiet the opposite." Samira walked back to the boat leaving Draco stunned and Claire puzzled.

"Are you really a pure-blood?" Hermione asked.

"Heck no, I'm half blooded, but I just wanted to see the look on Draco's face."

They both laughed as the boat pulled away and carried them, along with some first years, closer and closer to the Hogwarts School.


	11. your beds await

Chapter 11

The main hall was packed with students as Samira walked through. Candles floated above the tables and lit the ceiling which showed a starry night. Her and the first years were placed to the side by the teachers table and waited for the headmaster to speak. Dumbledore rose and lifted his hands for attention.

"It is time for a new year at Hogwarts." he began.

Samira petted Audrey from inside her pocket. She didn't pay a lot of attention to his speech about the years that had past, but she paid attention to his announcements.

"All products purchased at the Weasley wizard wheezes are to be supervised by a prefect. Anyone who is caught with an item unsupervised will be punished by their respected teacher." he waved to a tall brown haired witch sitting to the right of him. "Professor McGonagall will now sort the first years."

The professor stood up and walked over to where Samira stood.

"Miss Faller?" she asked.

Samira shook her head.

McGonagall turned to the room. "Before we sort the first years, we must sort our new transfer student. Miss Faller is joining us from the prestigious school of Beauxbaton and will spend her last two years studying here with us." she turned to Samira. "Now Miss Faller, please sit on the chair and I will place the sorting hat on top your head."

Samira did as she was told and felt the hat touch her hair.

"Very interesting." the hat said. "You're headstrong and standup for your friends yet you would keep the smallest of secrets from them. You want to learn and aren't afraid of many things. Yet there's something hidden deep inside you." the hat thought for a moment. "This is a tough decision, but I think the best place for you is," he paused. "Gryffindor!"

There was a loud applause from the tables. McGonagall pointed the way to the Gryffindor table.

Samira sat don next to Neville. From under the table he held her hand.

As the last of the first years were sorted, food appeared in front of them. Everyone helped themselves to chicken and other meats, along with fruit sand vegetables. Samira passed all of the meats and had her shorefronts and pumpkin juice.

Near the end of dinner, Harry came in late and sat down by Ron and Hermione. Everyone started whispering then. As the food disappeared and turned into puddings, Samira passed on the sweetly smelling treats and had more juice. Dumbledore stood in front, and everyone hushed. He gave a few more words and welcomed the new first years. New waves of whispers filled the air as he announced a couple staff changes. Samira was curious as to the uproar. Neville explained with great disregard to the greasy black haired teacher known as professor Snape. She noticed that the table that Claire sat at was cheering. Dumbledore raised his hands again and silence followed.

"Now, as everyone in this hall knows, Lord Voldemont and his followers are once again at large and gaining in strength."

Samira hung on each word that left his mouth, anything that had to do with the rebellion of Voldemont or his death eaters was always welcomed in Samira's ears.

"I can not emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the present situations, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts take to ensure that we remain safe. The castle's magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose upon you. However irksome you might find the- in particular, the rule that you're not out of bed after hours. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to a member of staff immediately, and I trust you to conduct yourselves, always with the utmost regard for your own and others safety." Dumbledore looked around before finishing his speech. "But now, your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish, and I know that your top priority is to be well- rested for your lessons tomorrow. Let us therefore say good night. Pip pip!" he waved his hand and the benches moved back.

Samira almost fell, not expecting the sudden movement, but was saved by Neville who caught her.

"Thanks Nev. I don't know how embarrassing that would be if you weren't there."

They walked hand in hand down the great hall and up the grand staircase.

"Maybe I should lead the way now." Neville said. "The stairs have been known to move."

"Move?!"

And as if on cue, the staircase shifted to the right, startling Samira.

"Like I said, they move." Neville gave a small smile and held out his hand for Samira to grab.

He lead her up more flights of stairs, she looked up to see the floors upon floors of moving staircases.

"I think I'm going to get lost in this place." Samira said still looking up in awe.

"You'll find your way around soon enough." said Neville as he passed by many paintings welcoming everyone back to the school. They came to the painting of a fat lady singing. Hermione came soon after with her first years and opened the door for them.

The common room was warm from the fire. Most of the couches and chairs were filled with talkative arrivals.

"Samira I'll show you to your bed if you want." Hermione said, coming up from behind them.

"Um, sure." Samira turned to Neville who was talking to a boy named Seamus. "Neville, I'm going to turn in for the night."

"Already?"

She nodded. "I don't want to start my first day of school off half asleep. I'll talk to you in the mourning or something."

He kissed her cheek and returned talking to Seamus.

Samira followed Hermione up the stairs and into the girl's dormitory. Each room had six beds all in a circular room with a heater in the middle. Samira saw her owl Alice in her cage by her new bed, her luggage was there along with her new uniform. Two white blouses, one long sleeved, the other short, a crimson and gold striped tied, a dark grey sweater-vest along with a jacket in the same color, a skirt with long stockings and her robes with a Gryffindor patch on the right breast. Samira folded up her new clothes and placed them on top of her trunk at the foot of her bed.

She changed into her boy brief styled navy blue shorts and into a white t-shirt. She brushed her hair out and pulled it back into a ponytail so that her long hair wouldn't become knotted the next day. She climbed into her bed and closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn't find her. She stared at the ceiling for a while, then the crimson curtains…then out the window that was placed to the right by her bed, still sleep wouldn't come. By this time girls started to come and find their beds. Samira was pleased to see that Ginny was in her room, but alas, she was the only familiar face.

"Hi, my name's Sanata Arlington." a girl said setting her cat on her bed to the right of Samira.

"Samira." she introduced herself again.

Sanata was a semi-short girl but explained that she was a sixth year. Her hair was long and black like Samira's, but Sanata's hair went to her mid-back and was braided as she readied for bed. She had odd violet colored eyes that hypnotized Samira for a moment. She wore faded blue jeans with a white long sleeved shirt with a black muscle shirt over it. After awhile talking to all the girls in the room everyone extinguished their candles and crawled into their beds. Even in the black void, Samira still couldn't get to sleep.

She sat up in bed and lit a candle that was on her night stand. Sanata's face was lit up, she looked like she was crying.

"You alright?" Samira asked.

She shook her head. "I'm alright. Just afraid of the dark, that's all."

"Do you want me to keep the candle lit? At least till you fall asleep?"

"What about you? Won't the light bother you?"

Samira gave a small laugh. "I could fall asleep on the surface of the sun. Light doesn't bother me."

"Thanks." Sanata curled up in her covers and closed her eyes.

Samira quickly went to the foot of her bed and pulled out a quill pen and apiece of parchment. She sat up in bed again and began writing a letter to Lupin. Halfway through her letter she yawned and put the parchment and pen on the night stand. She reached for Audrey who was sleeping at her feet and placed him on her pillow.


	12. i didn't want anyone else

Author's Break:

Ok, so I thought I would take a small break to answer some questions some of you asked me via. Message.

I get my inspiration from different outlets. Usually if I read a book I'll start thinking about different stories within that story, sometimes I would look at fan fiction type of videos from you tube. And sometimes (which is most times) me and my friends (mainly my friend Chelsea) would collaborate and make stories up together, that just so happen to have characters from Harry Potter and so on. Ok back to the story…

I think this will be one of the longest chapters I will write…some of you might say that I could've split this up in more chapters but I didn't feel like it…so hope you have the patience to read this, and I respect you if you do…have fun.

P.S. please don't hate me for what happens at the end…it's sort of out of character, but I felt like the situation wasn't going anywhere.

Chapter 12

The next day was busy with people getting ready for the first day of the school year. Samira found that she rolled off her bed in the middle of the night. she stood up and dressed into her uniform, she put on her green converse and into the common room, where she met Sanata and Ginny talking to Dean and Neville.

"what classes are you going to take?" Sanata asked.

"well I was planning on taking Dueling, but you don't have a class for that."

"we have a dueling club though." Ginny said. "and I heard you might tri-out for Quidditch?"

"yeah well that depends."

"are you planning in taking divination?" Sanata asked.

"yeah, I love that class."

They arrived in the great hall where most the students and staff were enjoying their first breakfast of the school year. The tables were filled with sausage, eggs, toast, basically anything you could think about of eating for breakfast. Sanata and Samira sat next to each other, while Ginny and Dean met up with other friends and Neville went to see Seamus.

Awhile later Professor McGonagall stood up and headed over to a small table. Everyone from Gryffindor headed over to see her.

Samira saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione a couple people in front of her, Neville was in front of them. It wasn't long till her and Sanata were up.

"good morning Miss Arlington, miss Faller." McGonagall greeted.

"good morning professor." both the girls said in unison.

McGonagall took Sanata's O.W.L.s and gave her new schedule. "I hope you enjoy your new school year."

"I will thank you." Sanata turned to Samira. "I'll be waiting for you by the doors, ok?" and she walked off to talk to Neville, who was too waiting by the great hall doors.

"miss Faller?"

Samira handed the professor her O.W.L.s and waited for her schedule.

"it appears you only have seven classes."

"yes."

"alright then, here's your schedule."

"um, Professor, I'd like to submit my name for Quidditch."

"alright." McGonagall wrote down her name on a separate piece of paper.

Samira walked over to Sanata and Neville.

"what classes do you have?" Neville asked

"well I got care of magical creatures first, then muggle studies. I have an hour study, divination then potions, transfiguration, herbology and lastly defense against the dark arts."

"that's quiet a lot." Sanata said.

"yeah I think, but think I can keep up."

"well I got to go. I have transfiguration first. I swear if I have to change my cat into a goblet again, I don't know what I'll do." Sanata laughed as she left down he hall.

"what classes do you have?" she asked Neville.

"none with you." he said. "I don't even have breaks with you."

"oh, don't worry. We'll just have to make the best of it in the common room."

"yeah, and we always have the mornings too."

"students are to report to classes as soon as they get their schedules." said McGonagall.

"I'll see you after classes." Neville kissed her on the cheek and left for his first class.

Samira laughed to herself and looked around her. "which way is the right way?"

"Samira are you having troubles finding your way?"

She turned to see Luna behind her and nodded at the question. "I guess I should've ask for a map."

Luna smiled. "which class do you have?"

"care of magical creatures, you?"

"the same." Luna grabbed her hand. "I'll show you the way." Luna showed her through the halls to a large bridge from there they went down a big hill where they waited with a group of other students by an old beat up shack.

"good morn' students." a very tall man came out of the shack, he had long and frizzy hair and beard. "me name is Hagrid. And this, is care of magical creatures." he walked through the crowd and started walking into the forest behind his house. "come on now, let's not wait for the Augureys to cry."

The group followed Hagrid to a small clearing inside the forest. there was stumps where all the students sat at.

"now that yer in yer seats, let's begin." Hagrid passed out a small piece of parchment to each student. "open your books to the section about woodland creatures." Hagrid paused. "before you do, you might want to stroke the spine, so it doesn't bite ye."

Samira's book purred as she rubbed the spine with her thumb. she laughed along with Luna who was doing the same.

"the piece of parchment I just handed to ye, has names of two or three different woodland creatures. Your job this week is to give a small summery of each creature, and my favorite part, to find each creature in this very forest."

There was aflutter of voices.

"you can work with one other student, but if I find any funny business going on, you all be doing a three page report on each creature."

"will you work with me Luna?" Samira asked.

Luna smiled and nodded.

Samira opened her parchment and looked at her names:

bow truckle M.O.M class. XX

grindylow M.O.M class. XX

Fairy M.O.M class. XX

"what do you have?" Luna asked.

Samira handed over her parchment. "what about you?"

Luna passed over her rolled up paper.

Jarvey M.O.M class. XXX

Imp M.O.M class. XX

Augurey M.O.M class. XX

"what do you think we should do first?" she asked Luna.

"I think we should do the summery first then find them."

For half of class they wrote from the book, while the rest of the class went into the forest to find their creatures. Once done, she looked at Luna. "where to first?"

"we want to go to the black lake."

"why? Everyone's going into the forest."

"the grindylow." Luna explained. "is the hardest creature on both of our list. If we get that one off our list first, then it will be easier."

Samira mentally hit herself in the head. "why didn't I think about that?" she thought. "do you think we can catch a grindylow?"

"it can't be that hard? But we have to go underwater and find them."

They traveled to the Black Lake. They took off their robes and sweater vests.

"do you think we'll get done in time to get back before our next class?" Samira asked wading in the water.

"we should."

They got farther into the water till they were struggling to stay above the water.

"Luna? Do we even know where to find these grindylow?"

"yeah, but we need to cast a bubble head charm before we go down."

They both waved their wands above their heads and a small semi-transparent bag appeared over their mouths.

They dived down and searched near the banks. Once they came to the edge of the grassy wall.

"should we go in?" Luna asked.

"we might get lost."

"if we do, we should just float up till we reach the surface."

She nodded as they entered the curtains of grass. There was unfamiliar sounds all around them. Something touched Samira's leg.

"did you do that?!"

Luna looked at her. "what are you talking about?"

"something just touched me!"

"maybe it's a grindylow."

Samira swam further cautiously looking around quickly and jumped at any sudden touch.

"I don't think we'll be able to find them in time." Samira said.

"your right." Luna sounded disappointed. "maybe we should head back."

They started swimming upward towards the shining surface, when something grabbed Luna's ankle and pulled her back down.

"Luna!"

"hurry, stun it, it's a grindylow!"

Samira raised her wand only to be attacked by more of the creatures. She fought them off. Kicking one at a time off her legs, once off, they parted and swam back to the grassy underbrush. She turned to Luna, her bubble head charm starting to dissolve.

"Petrificus Totalus!" she yelled and froze one grindylow in place. "stupefy!" she yelled as she got rid of the others still clinging to Luna's legs.

"Luna?!"

She looked up at Samira and smiled. "we did it." then she closed her eyes. Her charm almost completely dissolved.

"hold on Luna!" she grabbed her arm and then the grindylow, and swam as fast as she could to the surface. "just a little farther Luna!" she yelled, trying to keep Luna conscious.

At long last they broke the surface of the water, Luna gasped for breath.

"are you ok?" Samira looked to Luna.

"did we get the grindylow?" she asked breathless.

She held up the creature in her hand.

"yeah, I'm ok." Luna smiled and laughed as they began swimming to shore.

They saw Hagrid running up to them.

"thank Merlin you're alright. Someone said you both were here." Hagrid picked them both out of the shallow water and ran them to the grassy shore. "what were you two thinking?"

Samira and Luna explained and showed him the grindylow.

"well," he began. "just, don't do it again."

Samira waved her wand over her body and dried her clothes, Luna did the same. They walked back to the clearing in the forest to grab their bags and head to their next class.

"may I speak to you two before you go?" Hagrid asked.

The two girls stared at each other nervously as they walked with Hagrid back to his shack.

"what you two did today was very dangerous." he started off. "you might've gotten into big trouble with those grindylow. Not to mention the merpeople." he looked back at them. "just try to be more careful next time. I don't want to worry about you."

"yes professor." the girls said.

"just call me Hagrid." but before he went inside his shack he turned to them again. "just let you know, you're both getting extra credit for that grindylow." he smiled and went into his shack.

The girls looked at each other in shock.

"extra credit!" Samira cheered. "and on the first day!"

Luna smiled to herself as she and Samira walked up the hill and into the school again.

"which way is muggle studies?" Samira asked once inside the school hallways again.

"um, it should be near the divination tower."

Samira looked at her confused.

"it down this corridor, up the small staircase and on the left." Luna gave a smile as she saw Samira's face still not change. "you want a map?"

"I-I'll ask my teacher for one." she looked down the corridor in horror.

"I have to go, but I'll see you around. Try not to get too lost." Luna skipped down the opposite way.

"easy for you to say." Samira said to herself.

She found the class awhile later, after getting lost twice. When she entered she sat in the back and waited for the class to start.

The teacher stood in front of the class and passed out a piece of parchment.

"alright class. You all know me as professor Today we're going to plunge right into the school year with something new." he paused when he reached Samira. "did you find the class alright?" she asked her.

She nodded.

"good." she turned back to the class. "we were able to find this in the muggle world this summer. It's not in the best condition but it's still useable." he walked to the front of the class and pulled off a tarp from an object that Samira knew very well.

"this is a car. Muggles use it like we use our brooms, flew powder or port keys."

"can we touch it?" A boy asked in the front.

"in due time." but for now, look at the scroll I handed out to you in the beginning of class. On it you'll see the blueprint of the engine and what the main functions of a car are."

"are we going to have a test on this? Another student asked. "this looks very complicated."

"not on the car, but we will have a test next week, so please take notes and study." she looked around the class. "it occurred me that I haven't given out seat assignments."

The room groaned.

The professor waved her wand and the black board behind her scribbled blocks that represented tables and two names were scribbled down for the students that were to sit at which seat.

Samira was to sit in the middle of the class with another Gryffindor boy named Seamus Finnigan.

"aren't you Neville's girl?" he asked as soon as they both were settled.

"I guess, I think I saw him talking to you a few times."

"yeah, me and him are buds, we were in the DA together."

"Mr. Finnigan?" the professor looked at their table. "can you try not to flirt with your partner until at least a week has passed." she turned back to the board and started writing down notes about movies and photography cameras.

"I happy I got to meet you. Neville hasn't shut his trap about you since we got here." Seamus whispered to her.

She smiled to herself as she wrote down her notes.

"what class do you have next?" she asked.

"I have study hour, you?"

"the same."

"do you want to study together?"

"sure." Samira put her notes away and waited for the class to end.

Her and Seamus walked to the great hall where almost no one was.

"where's everyone?" she asked.

"common room mostly, but the great hall is almost in the middle of the whole school, so you'll be able to get your homework done and then go to your next class minutes before everyone else."

"that sounds fun."

They sat in silence as he and her did the muggle studies work.

"what did you get for question twenty four?" he asked.

"the flash? It's used to brighten the surrounding area so that the picture isn't dark."

"oh, now that seems obvious."

Once done they helped themselves to an early lunch and sat and talked before heading to their next class.

"I forgot to ask the professor for a map. I'm going to get lost heading to divination." she said hitting herself in the head.

"here you can have mine." Seamus dug into his bag and handed her a rolled up parchment.

"don't you need it?"

"I just needed it to find where they moved some of my classes, but I don't need it anymore."

"well, thanks."

They talked awhile more.

"well, if it isn't the mud blood from the docks." a voice called from behind them.

"Draco, just leave her alone."

Samira turned to see Draco and Claire sitting across the aisle from them.

"I already told you. I'm not muggle born. And if you don't stop calling my that name, then you'll regret it."

"what are you going to do? Curse me like you did at the docks? Wait. As I recall you didn't have the guts to do it."

Samira tried to raise to her feet, but Seamus kept her seated.

Draco laughed. "do you need your boyfriend to make sure you don't get in trouble?"

"he's not my boyfriend." she said through clenched teeth.

"yeah, that's right, you're with Know nothing Longbottom." Draco scoffed.

"Draco, please stop." Claire pleaded.

"come on Samira. Just forget him." Seamus whispered. "he's not your time."

"all students, report to your next classes." a teacher called from the front of the hall.

"I'll see you around mudblood." Draco turned in his seat and ate some food.

"can you not use that word please?" Claire asked him, turning in her seat as well.

Seamus and Samira passed him as they left the hall.

Samira mumbled a few words under her breath and turned in time to see Draco's food fly up and drench him from head to toe.

"you just couldn't resist could you?" Seamus asked as soon as they were outside the great hall.

"no." Samira smiled. "that's what he gets for using that hateful word."

She made her way to the divination tower. When she entered she sat herself down on the top of the stadium styled, topped tables. she looked into the crystal ball on the table and smiled to herself.

"Samira!" Sanata yelled from the floor level.

"hey." she waved to her and motioned her to join.

"nice seat choice." Sanata commented as she sat in the chair across from her.

"welcome my children. I'm Professor Trelawney." an old and lanky women came out from behind a curtain and looked around the room as the last of the students grabbed their seats. "in this room, we shall explore more about the noble art of divination." she sat in a red chair that was positioned in the center of the stadium seats. "in this room, you shall discover if you posses the sight." she looked up at Samira and smiled. "together we shall cast ourselves into the future." she got up from her chair and nearly tipped over the table with the movement. "today we'll start with small tarot card readings. Please face the person opposite you."

Sanata and Samira faced each other and grabbed the small decks that were placed in front of them.

"now asked your partner and the cards a question while you shuffle your partners cards, focus on this question. Don't let your mind wander."

Samira asked about her future, as many students did.

"well, it says in the book that you'll have your share of struggles but that you will end up happier than before." Sanata read for her book as she placed one card at a time on the table.

"what do you w2ant to ask the cards?" Samira asked her.

"what will my love life be like?" Sanata started shuffling the cards and asked this question with a small smile on her face. She handed the cards to Samira. "I hope this will be good."

Samira placed one card on the table.

"this card means you'll meet your love soon." Samira pointed out.

"how do you know that? You didn't even open your book."

"me and my father lived near a fortune teller in Ireland." she explained. She placed another card down. "this card means he will be familiar to you, probably a friend of some kind." she placed another down. Samira looked down at the card in confusion. "this doesn't make sense." she opened her book and flipped through the pages.

"what is it?" Sanata asked worryingly. "what does the cards say?"

"well, if I remember correctly, this card along with the others, and in this position, says that with you finding love, you'll hurt someone close to you."

"hurt? Like physically?"

"beats me. All it says is that the person you hurt will effect your relationship."

Professor Trelawney came up to them and looked down at the table. She looked down at Samira's cards and looked up at her. "my dear your aura is pulsing, are you in the beyond?"

"um.." she looked over at Sanata. "yes?"

Trelawney grabbed her hand and looked at it. "yes, here. You have the spirit to posses the sight." she pointed to a line in Samira's palm that held no significance to her at all. "please meet me after class."

Samira looked at Sanata. "what? Am I in trouble?"

She shrugged and looked back down at the cards.

The class ended faster than Samira would've wanted to, and stayed behind like Trelawney asked.

"yes, you there, Faller." Trelawney waved her over to where she stood, by the chair in the center of the room. "please have a seat." she motioned to sit in a seat that floated across the table from the chair.

"professor, I really must get to my potions class."

"oh this won't take long, just have a seat."

Samira hesitantly sat down in the chair.

"now, look into the crystal ball." Trelawney floated a ball from one of the tables and placed it on the on in front of them. "what do you see?"

Samira looked at it, it was foggy on the inside, she couldn't see anything. She looked up at the professor. "nothing, it's just foggy."

"look harder." she beseech

Samira looked into the ball again. She thought about her father. Then the ball started to clear and Samira heard voices, she leaned forward towards the ball and looked at what it showed. Her father talking and laughing with people she never saw before, than someone yelled a curse and a bright green light flooded the crystal ball. Samira jumped back, frightened.

"what did you see?"

Samira was speechless. She gasped for her breath. Did she just see her father's murder. Tears misted her eyes as she blinked them away. "I-I-I have to go, I'll be late for class." she picked up her bag and ran out of the class room as fast as she could.

For the rest of the school day she couldn't focus, potions was pointless because Slughorn did a potions contest to get a vial of Amortentia which she won, of coarse. Turned out that Claire was in her potions class with her. Transfiguration was promising to Samira, they had to change water into a solid, and McGonagall promised that by the end of that year that they would be skilled enough to change anything, air, liquid or solid. It didn't help either that she sat right next to Draco who was cracking a joke every time McGonagall opened her mouth, not to mention he would mutter a derogatory word towards Samira every time he looked at her. She knew that she wouldn't enjoy this class even though it was one of the most fun.

Herbology was sort of boring, they reviewed what they learned the year passed, which Samira found wasn't as far ahead as she once thought.

Finally it was time for defense against the dark arts. Samira was happy to have the class with Luna again, they talked about which creature they were going after the next day.

"if you two re done talking about nonsense, we will begin our lesson." Snape hovered over them. He moved to the front of the class. "you will divide into pairs. One partner will attempt to jinx the other _without speaking. _the other will attempt to repel the jinx _in equal silence_. Carry on."

Samira gave a small laugh as he said this, she learned how to give non verbal spells the last year at Durnstrang. She just hoped that Luna was smarter than the rest of the class, who all muttered under their breath.

About fifteen minutes into class Luna had already been turned upside down, stunned and had her hair on top of her head stand up completely into the air.

All Luna was able to do was knock Samira off balance momentarily.

Once class was over she explained that she learned the nonverbal spells the year before at 'Beauxbaton'

"well you could've at least warned me, I thought naracals got a hold of you."

"me? Never." Samira laughed as her and Luna headed back to their common rooms.

"see you in the morning." Luna waved as she headed up the Ravenclaw tower.

Samira waved back and headed up the moving staircase.

Once inside the common room she located Neville and spent the rest of the evening working of the parchments due the next day.

"Samira get up!" Ginny shook her from her rest. "Quidditch tri-outs are today, we can't be late."

She slowly got out of bed and got dressed into her regular clothes. There was no way she was trying out in her uniform. "do we have time for breakfast?"

"yes, but quickly."

The hurried down to the great hall just in time to received the morning post. Samira had a copy of the quibbler, as she didn't trust the daily prophet anymore, and a letter from Lupin. Mainly asking about school and if she adapted to her new life.

She hurried with breakfast, Ginny looked like she was going to explode if she didn't start heading for the Quidditch field soon.

When they arrived at the field, they were greeted with a storm of people.

"I didn't know there was this many people in Gryffindor." Samira whispered to Ginny as they made their way through the crowd.

"there isn't." Ginny said almost furious. "they're here to see Harry."

It wasn't long till Harry came on to the field, he split them up into groups of ten and did the basic fly around. A significant number of applicants dropped out after that. Luckily Samira was able to pass basics. They started to play an actual game soon after. Samira flew up high on her broom and ran back and forth as the ball was thrown from one person to the other. Finally she got the ball, she kicked up her broom and headed towards the goals. She was almost in scoring range when she heard Ginny yell her name.

"Samira duck!"

She looked back at her with a confused face. Then she found out what she meant. A bludger hit her square in the back, she dropped the ball and fell off her broom two stories high in the air. She hit the ground with a loud thump. Many people in the bleachers gasped as they saw the scean. The game was paused momentarily as they rushed to her side.

"Samira!" Ginny yelled trying to wake her up. she slapped her and she came to. "what hurts?" she asked.

"everything." she moaned as she felt the pang in her back again. "I can't feel my arm."

Ginny took it in her hands and felt around it. The pain was excruciating, Samira gave a loud cry.

"we need to take her to the hospital, her arms broken." Harry said. "we need someone to take her."

"I'll do it." a boy stepped forward. Samira remembered that he was chosen to be one of the new beaters. Jimmy Peakes if she remembered right. He picked her up carefully and wrapped his arm around her waist. She put her arm around his neck. She limped off the field.

The hospital wing was eerily quiet. Samira had her arm put up in a sling, and she had to lay down in the bed to make sure no damage went to her back. Neville came a visited her for an hours, but had to go to his classes.

"is there anything to do here?" she asked the nurse when she came around with her lunch.

"you can sleep." she said.

Samira looked around the room in boredom. "there was to be something?"

"nope sorry, you can't move from this bed until you're healed."

Samira breathed heavily and placed her head back on her pillow.

Two days passed, still the nurse said she wasn't healed.

"this has to be some kind of joke. Look I'm completely fine." she told the nurse as she began to sit up in her bed and turn to walk. The pain in her mid back ached again and sent a shot of pain through her whole body. She gave a small whimper and laid back down in bed.

"just rest, and wait for your injuries to heal." is all the nurse said to her.

She readied herself for another day filled with pure boredom until…

"well if it isn't my number one employee."

"George! What are you doing here?" she asked from her bed.

"well, I heard you got bludgered."

"it took you two days to get here?" she looked at him with a skeptical frown.

"well, I wasn't going to drop everything and come to your side, plus you needed time to heal." he teased.

"I swear, if I hear that word one more time, I'm going to snap." she laughed.

"yeah, well I thought you might need the company."

"thank you."

George went on about the adventure of setting up shop and how he found a nest of ashwinder eggs and how he had to freeze them before they ignited the house to ablaze. He also mentioned that he had no way to actually freeze the eggs and went on about the tale that ended up with his hands being scorched and blistered.

"are your hands ok?" she reached for his hands.

"yeah, they couldn't be better." George flipped his hands over and let Samira examine them. "I healed them before it got bad."

"that's a relief." she put her hands on her stomach.

"where's Neville?"

"he has classes to take. He was here about an hour ago, but left shortly afterwards." she looked away.

"are you guys ok?"

"we don't see each other, so I don't rightly know."

"you two will make it through this rough patch."

She looked back at him. "I don't think we can." she gave a weak smile. "you're not here to hear me whine about my relationship problems though, how's Fred?"

"good, like always. He misses you."

"I'm sure he does." she rolled her eyes and smiled.

Samira finally left the hospital wing a week later, only to find that she was so far behind on her work that she had to do detention in almost all of her classes to make up for it, that meant she couldn't see Neville the few times that she got to before. Slughorn gave her an invite to his slug club after she got out of the hospital.

"I didn't know that you were related to _the_ Edward Faller." he said as he talked to her after class one day. "you should come to our little outings and lunches when you have time."

"I'll be sure to do that." she said with a smile. Finally a way to spend more time with Neville.

October approached with full speed, the leaves fell from the trees, blanketing the forbidden forest with a new red carpet.

"alright class, today we're going to gather wood lice for the bowtruckles in professor Sprout's trees. So take today as a free day."

"are you going to work at Hogsmead this week?" Luna asked as she gathered small ant like creatures with her clear cup and screwed the cap of it closed.

"yeah, I missed the first week because of my accident at Quidditch tri-outs." she closed her container with a fast screw of the cap and they both headed back to the old shack. "Neville's going to stop by and we're going to hang out."

"that's sounds like fun." Luna knocked of Hagrid's door, there was no answer.

"what should we do now?" Samira asked.

"leave the cup here?" Luna placed her cup on the door step and left for the clearing to get her things.

Hogsmead was alive with students running here and there going to Honeyduke's sweet shop and the three broomsticks. The weather turned out to be very horrid and kept everyone inside the small buildings. Samira held her chin in her palm and leaned her elbow on the counter, they didn't have a lot of customers today, many of them went into the coffee shops to have warm drinks and hang out with friends. She was stuck here in the joke shop with Claire and George until her shift was over, then she and Neville could hang out like she wanted to all week.

"nasty weather huh?" George appeared from the back room. "me and Claire think it's better to close shop today, wait till next time. What about you?"

She looked at him. "I think that's wise. This place is dead."

She removed her magenta robe and hung it up on the hook in the back room.

"Samira?" George came into the back room before she left out the back. "thanks for the help today. Sorry we didn't have that much business."

"hey, this place is going to be busy with activity come spring." she smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. She left out the back and headed toward the three broomsticks to find Neville.

"Neville!" she smiled as she spotted him and Seamus having a drink of butter beer. She sat down next to him and joined in the conversation. Her and Neville left soon afterwards for Madam Puddifoot's tea shop. once they entered they were found by Ginny and Dean sitting in a window seat.

"did you finally get off of work?" Ginny asked.

"yeah, your brother gave the rest of the day off."

Outside was a commotion.

"what's going on?" Samira asked.

"I have no idea." Ginny ran to the door and looked outside along with the rest of the shop. She came back shortly. "the storms getting worse though we should head back."

Once in the common room Neville took Samira by the hand and led her to a desolate corner.

"what is it?" she asked.

"we hardly talk anymore. I miss you."

She smiled and kissed him. "I missed you too. And if this weather would've been nicer than we would've had a better time."

"no, you would've been working at the joke shop with George."

They stood in silence for a long time.

"this isn't working out is it?" she looked down, afraid of the words he would say.

"it would be better if we actually had classes together, or at least talked to each other, but."

"yeah I know." she kept her head down. "you want to break up don't you?"

"there's nothing else to do." Neville confessed. "you deserve someone a lot better than me." he put his hand on her shoulder.

"but I didn't want anyone else." she muttered.

She walked up to her dorm and cried herself silently to sleep.


	13. he kissed me

Ok _this _is the longest chapter I have written so far. Please forgive me. Love always SNB.

Chapter 13

"you and Neville split!" Claire was in shock as Samira told her the following week at Hogsmead. "what was the reason?"

"we never saw each other, but it's ok, we're still friends so it's no big deal."

"no big deal?! Samira, you practically talked about him every time you had the chance, you were falling in love with him."

"yeah well, this just proves that I was wrong about my feelings."

The doors bell rang, signaling that someone entered the shop. Draco called out Claire's name.

"I got to go." Claire took off her robe. "are you sure you'll be ok?"

"I've made it this long without breaking down." she said with a weak smile.

Claire gave a smile with the same intensity back and headed out to the shop.

"is that mudblood here?" Draco asked. "I heard Longbottom dumped her."

"not now Malfoy." Claire begged. "she's going through a lot."

"I bet, getting dumped by no-brains bottom."

Samira came out from the back room. "say that again." she yelled with rage in her voice.

"didn't you hear me before?" Draco gave a smug smile.

"Draco, let's go." Claire tried to drag him out of the store with her.

He shook her off and came face to face with Samira. "I guess even Longbottom has his taste in girls. I guess you're not even good enough for the bottom of the barrel."

Samira threw her fist in the air and punched him in the face. Blood came running down from his nose and Claire stood back and watched.

"I could have anyone I wanted, because I love the person for who they are, not because of their relations." Samira spat.

"you filthy mudblood." Draco raised his hand to strike her back when George came out from the backroom. "what's going on here?" he asked.

"stay out of this Weasley this is none of your concern." Draco said.

"I hardly doubt that." George raised his wand and pointed it at Draco.

"you don't have the guts."

"try me."

Draco turned and pushed Claire out of the shop with him. "come on Claire."

She looked back at the two. "I-I'm sorry." she said as she disappeared behind the door.

"what were you thinking?" George asked in a huff as he put his wand away.

"guess I wasn't." she muttered as she walked back into the backroom.

Samira was invited to one of Slughorn's parties.

"will Longbottom be there?" she asked.

"actually, I think he declined on this invite. Will you do the same?"

"no, I think I would enjoy a good party." she was about to go when a thought struck her. "professor, is it ok, if I bring someone with me? He's a really good friend of mine and he won't take up much space."

"what's the lad's name."

"George Weasley. He owns the joke shop down at Hogsmead."

"yes, yes, I know Weasley, his inventions are very hilarious." he chuckled to himself, no doubt thinking about a story to tell later. "I don't have a problem, but please keep this to yourself. If word got out that you were able to bring someone than everyone will want to take a guest with them."

"I understand. And thank you professor." She walked off to her transfiguration class.

"what? You want me to go to a party, with you?" George was sitting up in his flat with Samira trying to get an experiment just right. "isn't there anyone else you want to take?" his tone gave away that he was hinting towards something.

"no. And Slughorn only extended his invite to you. Please say you'll come. I'll be bored out of my mind with his talk about his old students. Not to mention the talk he'll have with Gwenog Jones."

"wait. You mean the captain of the Holyhead Harpies is going to be there?"

"yeah, she's the guest, one of the _only_ reasons the party's taking place."

He mulled it over in his mind for a split second. "fine I'll go, but just this once."

"thank you George!" she hugged him and continued with the experiment.

The party was what Samira thought it to be, so boring that Samira thought that she just might die if she stayed. When she met Gwenog for the first time she was excited, she loved the Holyhead Harpies and thought that meeting the captain would be something she'd never forget. But by the time the party was halfway through, all she wanted to do _was _forget. Gwenog was the most dullest person in the room, not to mention so full of herself that the only person that she could have a conversation that actually meant something with was Slughorn himself.

She made her way to where George sat, he made himself comfortable in a corner talking to some seventh years about some new experiments and talking trash about some teachers.

"at least you're having fun." Samira sunk down beside him. "I just had the worst conversation I think I will ever endure."

George laughed to himself. "it couldn't have been that bad."

She turned his head over to where Gwenog and Slughorn talked. No doubt ignoring every student in the room as they chatted about nothing in particular. "well." George looked at her again. "at least you don't have to talk to her again."

"yes, but it's the professor I have to talk to everyday for the rest of the year." she complained.

"George?" Zambini asked him. "are you coming to the Christmas party. Slugs been talking about it nonstop."

"I didn't know that there was a party." he looked over at Samira.

"hey you said this was the only party you wanted to go to." she said in her defense.

He laughed and put an arm around her. "that was before I had so much fun."

She playfully shook her head and removed his arm from around her.

The party was soon over and Samira was one of the first ones out of the room.

"that was actually a good party, I mean minus they dull company." George laughed.

"do you want to come to the Christmas party in December?" she asked.

"I'll have to think about it." he teased.

She playfully hit him in the arm. "so." she began walking with George to the exit near Hogsmead. "do you want me to come in early Friday to help with inventory?"

"maybe you can ask McGonagall if you can stay the night."

"what?!"

"It was a joke." he said defensively.

She breathed a sigh of relief and stopped by the exit. "your brother is the new keeper on the Gryffindor team."

"I heard."

"his first game is Saturday, maybe if you can pull yourself away from work, you could come and see him. He's really good."

"are you asking me to come to the game?"

"I'm not asking you, I'm just saying that it would be nice if you came."

"oh." George looked towards the exit where Mr. Filch was waiting for him impatiently. "cause if you asked me I would come no matter what." he smiled.

She rolled her eyes. "you and Fred never give up do you?" she laughed to herself.

He gave a playful smile while he shook his head and started to head to the exit.

"wait." she said, stopping him in his tracks. "I would really like it if, you came with me to the game."

He turned back to her. "alright. I'll see you then." he gave a small wave from over his shoulder and left for the exit.

The weather was perfect for the game. Samira found George near the stadium chatting to Claire.

"are you staying?" Samira asked as her and George headed in while Claire started moving back to the castle.

"no, I have work to do. Plus Malfoy isn't playing today." she headed back to the school without another word.

"you think her and Draco are fighting?" Samira asked.

"yeah, she hasn't called him Draco since that incident at the shop."

They found a good seat near the top of the stadium.

The game at half point was astonishing, Gryffindor lead the game by hundreds of points, most of them scored by Ginny. Ron saved every goal that came near him. And Peakes and Coote showed their rivals that you didn't need muscle to hit a bludger.

"what do you think about your brother and sister?" Samira asked.

"I knew Ginny was good, but I didn't know Ron could do such a good job at keeping." he joined in the cheer that yelled "Weasley is our king." George was getting more and more excited as the game proceeded.

Excitement filled the stadium as the two seekers spotted the snitch. Seconds later Harry came flying towards the ground with snitch in hand. The crowd cheered and George picked up Samira in excitement.

"George!" she giggled.

He realized what he did and quickly put her down. "sorry. I don't know what came over me."

They both laughed as they saw Ginny crash her broom into the commentator's podium.

"come on, let's congratulate the winners." Samira grabbed George's arm and pulled him down the stairs.

They were able to find Peakes, Coote, Demelza, and Dean but they couldn't find Harry, Ron, or Ginny.

"think Ginny got in trouble for that crash." George joked as they made their way back to High street. "today's game was really good, don't you think?"

Once they were at the fork in the road that split to the school and Hogsmead they turned to each other.

"well I guess I'll see you at the shop?" George asked.

"tomorrow right?"

"as early as you can get there." he hugged her. "thanks for inviting me."

"I was happy to do it." she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

He looked at her in shock. "what was that for?"

"remember the day in Diagoon Alley?"

He gave a small laugh and leaned in a quickly kissed her on her cheek.

"what was _that_ for?" she held her cheek with her hand.

"to keep everything balanced." he laughed.

"why you…" she chased him down the road a bit.

"I'll see you tomorrow." he called to her from down the road. "don't be late."

She waved to him and headed back to the school.

In the common room, everyone celebrated the first victory of the year. Samira saw Ron and Lavender in the corner snogging each other, completely unaware of everyone around them.

"Samira! Over here!" Seamus called over to her.

"hey, did you like the game?"

"it was the best." Seamus cheered. "but is it true about you and George?"

"what are you talking about?" she sat next to him.

"well, people were saying that you took him to one of Slughorn's parties."

"Slughorn told me I could bring him. He saw lots of potential in being part of the slug club. That's all."

"what about today's game?"

"I thought it would be nice for George to be there to cheer his brother and sister on."

"so you two aren't together?"

"god no, is that what everyone's saying?" she was almost shocked.

Seamus nodded his head.

"me and him are just friends that's all." Samira looked around the room and found Neville looked at her than quickly away. "Seamus? Is Neville mad at me because of the rumors about George and me?"

"I don't think he heard about them yet." Seamus turned to another one of his friends and begun talking.

Samira made her way over to Neville. He still avoided her gaze.

"hey Neville." she tapped him on the shoulder.

"hey." he looked at her quickly then out to the party.

"what's wrong?"

"um, n-nothing." he walked away from her and found Sanata.

She was confused by his actions, she decided to turn in for the night.

Sanata came in about an hour later with a few other girls. "Samira? Are you still up?"

Samira rolled over on her left side and looked at Sanata through squinted eyes. "I was."

"listen I need to tell you something." she paused. "it's about Neville."

Samira sat up in bed. "do you know what's wrong with him? He's been ignoring me all night."

She nodded her head. "it's because of me." she sat next to her. "do you promise not to be mad at me?"

She looked at her confused. But she promised.

"you remember that tarot reading on the first day of school?"

Samira nodded her head.

"well, apparently that guy was Neville. He asked me out before the Quidditch game today." she confessed.

"you said yes right?"

"I didn't give him an answer yet."

"you should go with him." Samira said after a short silence.

"you're not mad?"

She shook her head. "you're perfect for him. Why would I be mad?"

She hugged Samira. "thank you." she whispered.

Samira laid back down and rolled over so her back was to Sanata. Audrey was now in a cage on her nightstand after an incident with one of the other girls. She stuck her fingers thought he bars of the cage and petted her sleeping ermine. She quietly cried to herself.

The next few weeks were the same boring routine. Other than the weekends when McGonagall and Snape would allow her and Claire to travel to Hogsmead for work. George was on the brink of inventing a new love potion for the raising girl customers, and a reinvention of the Fanged Frisbee for the boys.

"I think that if we add some more of this." George started to pour a vial of a deep blue liquid.

"don't!" Claire yelled. "if you use too much, the love potion will become lethal."

"lethal?"

"she means that the guy or girl will more likely stalk the person than actually _be _with them." Samira explained. She handed him a bright green liquid. "this would work better." she turned back to her work on the Fanged Frisbee.

"Claire, where's Draco? I haven't seen him make an insult towards Samira in about a month."

"he's been busy. Me and him haven't even been together long enough to carry a conversation."

George and Samira gave each other a small glance at each other.

"what?" she tried to laugh under her breath as she looked back and forth at the two.

"I need to show you something." Samira grabbed her hand and headed out to the front.

"what's going on?" Claire laughed.

"you'll see." but Samira still held a serious tone.

they went outside in the autumn air and started walking through the town.

"where are we going?" Claire asked.

Samira didn't answer, instead she led her to the window of the three broomsticks.

They both looked through the glass.

"is that what Draco means by saying that he's busy?" Samira pointed to one of the booths on the far corner.

Draco and his goonies were sitting in the booth. Pansy was sitting right next to him, there was hardly any space between them, even though there was space to spare. Draco had his arm around her, while Pansy rubbed Draco's leg flirtatiously. He whispered something in her ear, she laughed to herself.

"him and Pansy just like to tease each other, he told me that himself, it's not really--" she caught her breath as her eyes widened.

Draco and Pansy were kissing. And not the kind of kissing like you'd kiss your mother, but like Ron and Lavender kind of snogging.

"that bastard." she said under her breath.

"I would've told you sooner." Samira tried to explain. "yesterday when me and George were setting up shop, we saw both him and Pansy walking back to the school. I would've told you if I saw you."

"I probably wouldn't have believed you." he eyes started to tear. "thank you for telling me." Claire wiped her eyes dry and walked back to the joke shop.

"you're not going to do anything?!" Samira ran to her side and kept pace with her. "you're going to let him get away with that?!"

Claire turned to her. "no, I'm not. He's going to get a piece of my mind. But for right now, I'm going to let him enjoy himself, before I destroy him."

A few days later, during her study time, Samira went to find Claire who didn't come in with Draco.

"do you think she'd be in the slytherin common room?" she asked Seamus.

"I don't know how those damn slytherins think."

"hey." she almost yelled. "I'm friends with those _damn_ slytherins." she walked out of the great hall and towards the dungeons. She past a few unkind slytherins on her way, all gave her dirty looks. _"why are they looking at me like that?"_ she thought to herself. She accidentally bumped into a boy in her lapse of thought.

"watch where you're going Gryffindor!" he spat.

"I'm sorry." she muttered under her breath.

She kept her head down, trying not to make eye contact with any of the students just incase any of them had any hostile tendencies against Griffindors.

Finally she reached the common room. _"crap." _she thought to herself. _"I don't have the password." _

She looked around her and found a seemingly kind student. "excuse me. Do you know where I can find Claire Baudelaire?"

"she should be in the great hall."

"she's not, anywhere else?"

"sorry. I don't know her that well."

Samira followed her route back to the great hall and tried not to bump into the intimidating group she did before.

"Samira!" Seamus yelled from his seat. "thank god you're here, you almost missed it."

"missed what?"

He pointed to the far end of the slytherin table, there Claire was giving all her energy in chewing out Draco and Pansy who were sitting extremely close to each other again.

"I saw you two Draco!" she yelled.

"where? In the common room?"

"you mean there was more than one time?!"

"n-no that's not what I mean." he stumbled as he tried to defend himself.

"I saw you two at the three broomsticks! You were closer than Weasley and Brown!"

"so what?" Draco turned his tone from defensive to aggressive. "who I chose to kiss is up to me!" he stood up and was inches from her now.

"you and _I _are together!" she yelled in his face. "not you and Parkinson!"

"well what's done is done." his tone became softer, no doubt trying to make the conversation private, as everyone in the great was staring towards their direction. "can we just talk somewhere else?" he reached over and grabbed her hand.

She recoiled from him and pushed him away. "we don't need to talk anywhere else. We're done!" she stomped away from the table.

"fine!" he yelled after her. "but don't come running back to me when your one night stand from Durnstrang doesn't take you back!"

She shot back around and hastily walked over to his side.

"I never want to talk to you ever again!"

"good, you're doing me a favor."

Her eyes were really filled with hatred after that statement and punched him right in the face. He hit the ground with a loud thud. Blood started coming out of his mouth.

"Parkinson," she turned to the girl who was looking down at her love interest from her seat. "you can have him."

Claire exited from the great hall with a loud slam of the doors.

"that was exciting." Seamus said to Samira. "the ending was unexpected though."

"what are you, reviewing a movie?"

"movie?"

"do you ever look through your muggle studies notes?"

"no, not really."

She gave a little laugh as she rolled her eyes at her friend. "I think I should go after her." she got up from her seat and chased after her.

Samira finally caught up with her near the outside corridor, she was leaning against the wall, hands on her knees and she breathing heavily.

"you ok Claire?" she asked.

"seriously? I feel fantastic." she said as she looked up. "like a weight has come off my shoulders."

"yeah?" she stood beside her. "I can't believe you punched him. That was pretty amazing."

"I didn't think I could actually do it." Claire laughed. "it felt good though."

She patted Claire on the back and then heard the teacher call for the next classes. "we better leave, you don't want detention do you?"

Claire shook her head. "I thought I was going to get detention for what happened in there." she turned back to Samira who was getting her things from Seamus who took her things from the great hall. "oh Samira. Isn't your birthday soon?"

"yeah it's a couple days away."

"the twentieth?"

She nodded.

"I have to remember to get you something." and Claire left before Samira could protest.

"blimey Samira, I didn't know that your birthday was this week. How old are you turning?" Seamus asked.

"seventeen."

"wow, old enough to go out in the world. Bet you can't wait to get out of here."

"a little."

"happy birthday Samira." Dean said as he and Ginny passed her in the great hall.

"does everyone know?" she asked Neville and Sanata, who were sitting next to her.

"Seamus has a big mouth." Sanata confessed. She nudged a small box towards her. "I got you something. Well actually it's from both me and Neville."

"you both didn't have to get me anything." she said as she grabbed the box and slowly opened it. Inside was a small charm bracelet.

"Sanata thought you'd like it."

"I do, it's beautiful." she looked at the charms, there's was four in all. One was a small silver fairy who's wings fluttered from time to time. Another was a golden four leaf clover, the third was the Gryffindor lion and the last was a small vial, about two inches big, and it had a blue sand inside it. Samira quickly put it on, it was a little loose but other than that it was perfect. "thank you, both of you." she got up and hugged them both on the bench.

The owls came soon after, a small package landed in front of Samira's seat.

"what is it?" Sanata asked.

"I don't know." she looked at the letter that was attached to it. "it's from my godfather. She opened it and inside was two or three small books. She pulled them out and looked through them, it was an album filled with pictures of her and her father. She opened the letter and read it.

_Happy birthday Elisabeth, I found these photos in your old house in Ireland. I thought that maybe you might like to have them. There's even a few pictures of your mother in the back. Hope you like this. By the way, your father left you something that none of the goblins could fit in any vault, are you sitting down? He left you a small flat in Kells Ireland. He thought that you might like it when you left school. I hope that today if extra special for you, and hope that you enjoy the rest of your school year. Until December. _

_Lupin._

"well?" Neville asked.

"I got a flat." she said almost shocked. "my father left me a flat."

"that's amazing." Sanata hugged her. "your father must've loved you. My parents would never buy me something like that, even if it _was_ my birthday."

Samira flipped through the albums and laughed at a few pictures. One of when she was around five years old, her father thought it would be a good idea to take her fishing, the muggle way, only to have his line stuck in a tree. The picture showed him trying to climb the tree to unknot the lines.

Another was when she was older, around twelve of thirteen. Her and her father were spending a weekend camping, the picture showed the two having a picnic he drank a small potion that she brewed and snuck in his drink. His nose grew into an elephant trunk, her younger self laughed so hard that she fell backward. Samira flipped to the back, Lupin wasn't lying when he said there was pictures of her mother, there was at least five pages just of her. She started to wonder why her father never showed these to her. One picture showed her mother walking across the wall of a stone bridge, but she lost balance and fell into the small river beneath her. She rose to the surface laughing.

Another showed her on the top of the Eiffel Tower over looking Paris, the wind blew through her hair and into her smiling face, she talked to someone behind the camera and laughed. She said something that Samira saw was the words 'I love you'. Samira smiled to herself and closed the books.

Later in the day Samira bumped into Tonks.

"hello." she smiled at the Auror.

"hey." she held a small box in her hand. "this is for you." she held it up and handed it to her. "I heard you were asking for one."

She opened the bendable present and revealed a small book.

"a journal? I was planning on buying one after Christmas, thank you." she hugged her, then parted quickly. "sorry."

"that's ok. Hope you're having a good day?"

She nodded. "yes, couldn't have a better one."

"that's good to hear." Tonks paused for a second thinking whether to say what she was going to, finally she opened her mouth. "I didn't think this was a good present compared to the others, so I did a little more." she gave her a small parchment.

"what's this?" Samira unfolded it, it had a small address on it.

"it's your mothers address. I found her still living in France."

Samira stared at Tonks with wide eyes. "you found her?"

She nodded. "I didn't know if you wanted me too, but I just thought that--" she stopped as Samira hugged her again.

"thank you." her muffled voice said. "you don't know what this means to me." she parted from her to reveal tears of joy. "dad said she died. To think that she's been living this whole time." she smiled to herself. "thank you Tonks, I couldn't ask for a better present." she hugged her again.

"well, your welcome." Tonks hugged her back quickly, "now you best be off, you don't want to be late for your class."

_Hello, my name is Elisabeth Samira Faller_

_I don't know if you'd believe me when I tell you that I'm your daughter. My father's name was Edward James Faller. He told he that my mother died when I was younger, but I believe that you're my mother. I have waited seventeen years to see you. And all I want to know is why you didn't find me earlier? You don't know how much I want to meet you. If you truly are Amelia Rosalina Faller, please from the bottom of my heart reply to this letter._

_ESF._

"did the post come yet?" Samira asked Ginny.

"no, Merlin you're just like Hermione during the summer."

"sorry, it's just that it's been two weeks, and I still haven't heard anything."

"just be patient. Chances are your owl didn't get to her until late last week, and it takes an average person five days to reply to a letter, not to mention without a clear address _her_ owl would take at least three days to get here."

"I just hope that it gets here soon." she put her head on the breakfast table. "I've been so nervy lately."

"I know. And you should be nervous." Ginny looked up at the ceiling. "sounds like the post is coming."

Seconds later owls filled the great hall sky, dropping letters and packages to the student below them. Samira caught sight of her owl with a bundle of envelopes in her claws. She could feel her stomach turn, she felt sick from her nervousness. The parcel fell in front of her, she didn't move for a moment.

"are you ok Samira?" Ginny shook her gently. "you don't look to well."

"I think I'll be ok." she unwrapped the letters, there was four letters in all. Her eyes stopped at a faded yellow envelope. A smile spread over her face.

"is it her?" Ginny looked at the name on the envelope.

"yeah." small tears started to appear in her eyes, Samira quickly brushed them away as she quickly opened the letter.

_My darling Elisabeth_

_I can't believe you finally found me, how's your father, is he well? You don't know how I've felt everyday that I was away from you. You must know that I left to protect you. You see, me and your father were spies for Dumbledore the beginning years of the order of the phoenix. I got into trouble, and needless to say, had to leave you two behind. I meant to come back and find you, but I couldn't seek you out until you-know-how was gone, and even after that there was still death eaters looking for me. I'm so sorry if I caused you or your father any grief. _

_I'm quiet fine right now, I'm living with my sister in Paris and plan to find you when the summer break begins. Are you still going to school? Merlin I can't believe all the things I've missed these passed seventeen years. But now I can try to have the life I wanted to have with you. Please write back to me, I long to hear from you again. _

_Yours truly, your dear mother._

Samira held on to the letter for a few more minutes before starting on the others. On was from Lupin, telling her that the daily prophet was starting to bash her father for being a death eater and not to believe them, that he was a spy. Which Samira already knew from her mother's letter. The last two were the new issues of _the daily prophet _and _the quibbler_.

What Lupin said was true, the daily prophet didn't hold back when it came to bad mouthing her father. Saying that he deserved to be killed. And went on about what secrets he could've passed on to you-know-who himself.

She laughed as she read the paper to Ginny.

"can you believe theses lies? I guess they don't have any _real_stories to tell anymore." Samira said as she crumpled up the paper and opened _the quibbler. _

Winter rolled around faster than Elisabeth had wanted. This meant that the shop would busy with students buying presents for siblings. She put on her magenta robe and head for the front counter and waited for the people to start coming in. About three hours into her shift professor Slughorn came in and handed her an invite to his Christmas party. "I hope you can come."

"I'd be glad to." she gave a false smile. And opened the envelope, as son as her eyes fell on the plus one box, she smiled for real. "is there going to be any special guests this time?"

"oh yes." Slughorn glowed. "I had a dear friend by the name of Eldred Worple, and he's bringing a friend of his named Sanguini.

"the vampire?"

"one and the same."

Samira was more delighted than when he said that Gwenog Jonas was coming the last party she went to. A real vampire, in person no less.

"I'll see you then." Slughorn bundled himself as he stepped out into the cold air.

As the day dwindled away, the customers became less and less frequent. Finally she locked up the store for the night. "hey George." she pulled out her invite from her robe pocket and handed it to him. "do you want to come with me?"

"what about Neville?"

"we broke up like." she paused as she tried to remember. "months ago. He's going with Sanata."

"well you have to tell me theses things, I thought you two were still together."

"sorry I thought I told you." she laughed. "well? You want to go?"

"sure."

Samira and George entered Slughorn's busy office. Most of the slug club was already in attendance and tried to avoid Slughorn as much as possible.

"Miss Faller." Slughorn called to her.

"I'll see you later." George snuck away.

"George!" she squealed quietly as she tried to grab him to stop him from leaving her.

"Samira. I want you to meet my friend Worple."

She shook his hand. "you're the writer aren't you?"

"yes indeed that's me."

"I thought that your book the blood brothers was so captivating."

"well thank you. Are you planning to become a writer?"

"yes, I admit that I am. I was going to become a potions maker like my father but then I fell in love with literature."

"and it felt like it was it was calling to you?"

"yes."

"that's exactly how I felt about writing when I was younger." he turned to his pale friend to his right.

"is that Sanguini?" she asked.

He nodded. She shook his hand as well. "I never a vampire in person. I know that I sound like a complete twit, but is all that your friend writes about you true?"

"he likes to exaggerate on a few things." Sanguini said.

After a few questions about the vampire himself she excused herself from the trio and found George chatting with Hermione.

"did you have fun?" George teased.

"actually I did. Even though Worple was full of himself, I was able to have a decent conversation."

"and the vampire?"

"he was agreeable. Even though it looked like he was going to eat me half the time."

George laughed.

"George can you moved a little to your left?" Hermione asked. "I think I can see McLaggen coming this way."

"you brought mad tempered McLaggen?!" Samira asked. "don't tell me you did that to get back at Ron."

"of coarse not."

"I think I'm missing something." George said.

Samira tried to explain. "well Ron started going out with Lavender Brown, and sometime after that Hermione sent a swarm of birds after him, now they won't talk to each other and--"

Hermione gave a glare her way.

"right, I think I'll shut up now." Samira took a drink of pumpkin juice and stayed quiet.

"oh no, he's coming this way." Hermione looked worried. "it's nice to see you George, see you in the common room Samira." and she ducked out of the small space she was in and headed over to another group of witches.

"that was interesting." George said.

"heh heh yeah I guess."

George elbowed her in the arm and pointed over to where Professor Trelawney was at. "it isn't the creepiest thing to see isn't that teachers actually have a life." George whispered to her. " it's seeing them completely shit faced."

Samira almost spat out her pumpkin juice as she looked from Trelawney to George.

She caught a small glimpse of Harry and Luna as the party continued. The party was starting to end when Samira saw that Draco was getting an ear full from Mr. Filch, she couldn't help but to laugh.

"Alright guests." Slughorn called over the whole room. "since it is the Christmas holiday let us have a bit more fun." he waved his wand and music started to play through the room.

"want to dance?" George held his hand out.

"sure." she smile and took it.

Samira sat up in her bed writing a letter to her mother. Telling her the news about her father, but assured her that all was still well. Told her about the flat he has left her and about her transfer to Hogwarts.

"what a night." Sanata came into the dorm room and plopped herself on her bed. "that party was amazing."

"yeah it was." Samira laid down on her pillow after feeding Audrey.

"how did your night go?" Sanata got up and dressed for bed.

"nothing much happened."

"well that's not good," she sat in bed and lit a candle before putting her head ion her pillow and started to sleep.

"he kissed me." Samira said from her bed.

"wha?" Sanata turned and stared at her. "who?"

"George."

"Weasley?!"

She nodded.

"when, where?" Sanata sat up in her bed as Samira told the story.

"it was after the party, outside Slughorn's door."

"how did it happen?" Sanata asked. "I thought you two were just friends."

"we are- were- I don't know anymore." Samira sat up in her bed and ran both hands through her hair. "it started when Slughorn started to play the slow music, do you remember?"

"yeah." Sanata nodded.

"well halfway through one song, he leaned over and whispered in my ear." she closed her eyes and tried to remember. "he said, 'I fell like I should kiss you right now.' of coarse I just laughed it off, you know how me and him tease each other. But then he looked at me in the eyes and said, 'I'm serious, you don't have to kiss me back if you don't want to'"

"what did you do then?"

"I laughed again, told him to keep dancing. Then we left. I had a test first thing in the morning and George was going to stock the shop early the next day, so we both left together." she paused trying to remember the scean again. "I remember that we didn't leave right away. That we stood there for a moment or so. I could tell he was nervous about something, then." she stopped.

"then what?" Sanata was hanging on every word, like Samira was telling her a fairy tale of some kind.

"then he grabbed me, pulled me into his arms, and he kissed me."

"did you kiss him back?"

"I don't remember, yes? No? I was too shocked at the time."

"what happened after that?"

"he pulled away from me and walked a few steps away, I'm pretty sure he was embarrassed. Then he walked back to me and said, 'I'm sorry, that was uncalled for.' or something like that."

"what di you do?"

"nothing." she gasped silently. "absolutely nothing. I walked with him, without saying a word, and watched him go out the door towards Hogsmead." Samira hugged her legs. "I'm a horrible person."

"no you're not. You didn't know he was going to do that. And when it did, you just didn't know how to react. That's all, you're not a horrible person."

"what should I do? I feel awful."

"the sooner you talk to him the better." Sanata said. "the longer you wait to tell him if you're interested, the more awkward it's going to be."

"but I don't even know how I feel about him anymore."

"I think time is the best solution right now. When do you see him again?"

"Christmas break, I'm suppose to spend the day with his family."

"what?"

"his brother Fred asked me to come and the Weasly's are a family friend." she explained.

"well you should tell him before then. Merlin knows how uncomfortable that Christmas will be if you don't."


	14. Fin? maybe?

_Hey again, I think I'm going to add a small Author's break before every chapter now, just because I can. Anyway I got a message asking what Samira's mom and dad look like. Well for people that want to know. Her mom looks like Jewel Staite, for people who don't know her, she's the girl that plays Kelee from __Firefly__. Except that her hair is black and curly(of coarse) her father looks like Peter Facinelli, he's playing Carlisle (I think I spelt that right.) in the upcoming __twilight__ movie, he also played in __fast lane__. That's what he looks like, brown hair and a small goatee. So that's for my readers, sorry for the long Author's break, thanks for reading this far, it's almost over. SNB_

_Chapter 14_

_Samira woke up in Lupin's home. She had arrived a day after the Christmas party at Slughorn's and dreaded the weekend she had to spend over at the Weasley's the next day. _

_She walked down the stairs to see Lupin eating breakfast drinking a cup of coffee, and reading __the daily prophet_. "oh," he put down the paper and looked at her as she made her way into the kitchen. "did you have a good night?"

"it was nice, though it was a bit noisy."

"yes, I apologize for that. The town's very lively during the holidays."

She sat across from him and started to eat some French toast.

"I heard you found your mother." he said.

"yes, Tonks helped me. She found her, but didn't know if it _was _her."

"well that was very nice of her." he turned back to the newspaper.

"what's going on between you two?" she asked. "I started to notice it the last time we were at the burrow."

"it's nothing that you would be interested in." he took another drink of his coffee. "when you're done, we'll travel to Kells and look over that flat."

She quickly finished her breakfast and ran upstairs and got dressed. Audrey was sitting in his new cage and looked up at her.

"sorry boy, you can't come with me today. Maybe next time." she promised and headed back down stairs.

"ready to go?" Lupin handed her a coat and opened the door for her. "we're going to take a train and then a short boat ride. It's to cold to fly on broom."

The train ride was nothing compared to the Hogwarts express. Muggles were everywhere, so Lupin and her had to watch what they said to each other. There was a small child crying next to Samira in the next aisle. The kid was about six, and his mother didn't know how to quiet him down.

"do you want to hear a story?" Samira asked him.

The kid quieted a bit as he nodded.

"you have to promise to be quiet though." she put her finger over her mouth in a shushing motion. The boy became quiet. The mother looked at her and mouthed 'thank you'.

"what's your name?" she asked him.

"Bradley."

"well Bradley, do you like magic?"

He nodded.

"well do I have a story for you." she went on about the adventures about Harry Potter that she read about in _the daily prophet _and some that she heard from her friends. Lupin quietly laughed next to her as the boy stared wide eyed at her as she went on telling the story.

"it isn't true though." he said as she finished one of many of her stories.

"not true? They're all true. But." she leaned in so that she could whispered in his ear. "you can't repeat these stories to anyone."

"why?"

"because the witches and wizards live in secret, if you tell someone then they'd disappear."

"then why'd you tell me?"

"can I be honest with you?"

He nodded.

"I'm a witch, and I saw something in you that I could trust."

"really?"

"yeah, but you have to promise to be good, or else other witches and wizards won't tell you _their _stories."

"alright." he sat up in his seat and stayed quiet for the rest of the train ride.

"you're really good with kids." Lupin whispered to her as she leaned back in her seat.

"yeah I guess, it just comes naturally."

After the train stopped the mother walked up to Samira and gave her a small ten dollar bill.

"oh no I couldn't." she said giving the money back to her.

"please, it's the least I could. I've been trying to get him to behave for a while now. Please except this as a thank you."

She hesitantly took the money.

Bradley came up to her again. "can you tell me more stories?"

She knelt down to his level. "I can't, I have to go my home." she gave him a smile. "but remember what I said, if you're good there will be another witch that will see you and tell you stories. You promise to be good?"

He nodded and took his mom's hand and left in the opposite way.

The boat ride wasn't as great as the train ride, there wasn't any kid that needed a story told to them, but they were soon at Ireland.

"I'll go rent a car." Lupin left her momentarily. She waited when she heard a familiar voice.

"Samira? What are you doing here?"

"Seamus? I could ask you the same." she hugged him.

"I'm here to see my grandparents. You?"

"I'm here to see that flat my dad left me."

"the one in Kells?"

She nodded. He looked back behind him as someone yelled his name. "well I'll see you at school after break."

"yeah, see you then."

Lupin came up to him. "was that Seamus Finnigan?"

"yeah."

"charming boy," he said. "couldn't quiet do a spell that resulted without an explosion though."

She laughed as she remembered him telling stories in the great hall. "you got the car?"

He held up the keys and they headed for the parking lot.

Kells was a small town, a few markets and pubs lined the roads and people waked down the street with presents in their arms.

"looks like a nice place." Lupin said as he parked his car on the side of the road. "and the flat should be…" he looked at a piece of paper. "on the second floor here." he pointed to a small shop next to the car. The shop was a small café. They both got out of the car and went inside the warm building.

"hello, can I help you two?" a young girl asked.

"um yes, we're here to look at a flat." Lupin handed her the piece of paper.

"oh yeah, we've been wondering when you'd get here. My name's Corinne" she went into the back and came back out to the front without her apron on. "follow me." she lead them to a door on the other side of the backroom entrance. She lead them up the stairs and into the second floor. "there's three other people living here too." she pointed to two doors on the right. "my mum and me live here and the owner lives on the far end, so if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask us." she opened the door to the flat. The living room was a little small and it was connected to the kitchen. "you have your dining quarters here, um, in the back..." she walked over to a door that was on the right of the living room. "is the bedroom, and the bathroom is connected to it."Samira entered the bedroom, it was big enough for all her things. "I like it here." she said.

"when can we expect you to move in?"

Samira looked over at Lupin. "I think this summer? But I have to go back to school for another year so I'm not going to stay long during the break."

"that's fine, I know how school is." she looked around the room. "so do you two want to look around the place some more?"

"um no thanks, I think we've seen enough." Samira walked over to Lupin. " you think we can go and see dad's grave while we're here?"

Samira stood over her father's grave, it was almost covered by snow now and dead grass hid his name. "is anyone looking Lupin?"

He looked around him. "I don't think so."

She took out her wand and waved it over the grave the grass weeded itself and the snow melted around it. "hey dad." she said. "it's good to see you again." she knelt by his grave stone and touched it with her bare hand. Lupin walked to the gate entrance to give Samira some time alone.

"school's been ok I guess, I've made lots of friends." she laughed. "I have a job at a joke shop. The owners are really funny twins, though they sometimes try to flirt with me, don't worry they fail miserably." she nodded her head. "yeah, um, I found mom." she moved her hand over the engraved name. "she explained everything to me, why you had to lie to me and all, and I understand why you couldn't tell me anything. But why did you hide the fact that I'm half werewolf?" she paused. "I don't think you can imagine the shock I had when I passed out at Lupin's house." she smiled again. "but I guess that was part of the secret you couldn't tell me." she paused again. "Merlin, I miss you dad. I'm going to live in the flat you gave me. And then I'm going to become a writer." she looked over at Lupin. "I have to go dad, but I'll come back when it's warmer, ok?" she patted the top of the headstone before she left and then headed over to Lupin.

"you're ready to go?" Lupin asked.

"yeah." her eyes started to tear.

Lupin put an arm around her. Her wrapped her arms around his waist. He brushed the back of her hair as she cried a little more. She parted a few minutes later, she wiped hr eyes dry and sniffled the rest of the time as they headed back to the car.

The burrow was warm on the Christmas eve day. Samira woke up in Ginny's room and headed down to the living room. She had to share the room with Hermione and Ginny, and with those two together the chatter didn't stop. She didn't get to bed until two in the morning. She got dressed quickly and headed downstairs.

The kitchen was empty except for Mrs. Weasley, as mostly everyone was outside. Samira saw that Bill, Fleur and Lupin were sitting in the living room, Lupin sat in a chair reading while the two lovebirds lounged on the couch.

She snuck out the backdoor through the kitchen to see that most of the Weasley kids were doing outside. The twins were throwing snowballs at Ron and Harry, while Ginny and Hermione sat in the snow covered garden.

"hey Samira. You want to help pelt Ronald with snowballs?" Fred asked.

"no thanks, think I'll just watch." she turned to where the girls sat, then a snow ball hit the back of her head. She froze as the cold snow ball started melting and trickled cold water down her coat. she slowly turned to the boys, trying not to laugh, "ok, which one of you did that?"

"he did!" the twins said in unison, pointing to the other.

She gave a smile towards the both of them as she knelt down and started packing snow into a ball.

"you wouldn't." Fred said. "you couldn't possibly think about taking on us in snow ball fight."

"oh really?" she asked sarcastically, as she threw the ball and hit Fred in the stomach.

"this is war!" he yelled as he started to pack more snow.

Samira did the same and not long after her the twins, Ron and Harry were in a snow ball fight. During the fight she lost direction and ran into George, she fell to the ground.

"I'm sorry." she laughed, then froze as she looked up at him.

He held out his hand. "are you ok?"

She reached up and took his hand. "yeah, just covered in snow that's all."

Once she was up they held hands for a moment longer than necessary.

"hey you two!" Ron yelled. "mom's telling us to come in."

They parted quickly and started walking towards the house. Fred waited up for them, and looked at them in a confused way. They didn't look at each other, most of the time they looked in opposite directions.

That night was pretty quiet. Mrs. Weasley had everyone listened to Celestina Warbeck, Samira saw Lupin look at the fire in the fireplace, Mr. Weasley was nodding off to sleep, Ron was watching Fleur and Bill, probably thinking about Lavender the whole time.

"hey Samira? You want to play Exploding Snap?" Fred asked.

"sure. How do you play?"

After he explained, they began to play with Ginny, Hermione, and George. They laughed quietly as Mrs. Weasley already had the volume on the radio up as loud as she could get it.

Samira accidentally bumped elbows with George, he froze and dropped the Exploding Snap.

"you lose George." laughed Ginny. "Hermione it's your turn."

Fred looked across the side of Samira over at his brother and mouthed something to him.

Harry started to talk to Lupin, Samira was glad, she was afraid that Lupin wouldn't have fun while he was here.

Fleur started mimicking the song that was playing.

"I think that's our cue to go to bed." Fred whispered.

"why?" Samira asked.

They all pointed to their mother.

"oh," Samira saw Mrs. Weasley glaring at Fleur. "bed sounds good right about now. "she faked a small yawn.

They kids started to head upstairs. "hey Samira can I talk to you?" Fred asked as they were out of earshot of the adults.

"sure." she smiled.

They went into a desolate hallway near the stairs going up to the attic. "what's up with you and George?" he asked.

"what are you talking about?" she tried to fake a laugh.

"you two have been acting strange around each other. So what's up?"

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about?"

"if I ask George, will he say the same thing?"

Her smile faded. "I don't know."

"just tell me what happened. Is it bad?"

She looked down and muttered under her breath.

"what did you say?" Fred bent down to hear her more clearly.

"her kissed me." she whispered.

"he did?" he said. "about bloody time." he muttered.

"what?"

"nothing." he smiled. "Listen I think you should kiss him back." he shrugged casually. "even the score a bit, and maybe you'll feel something."

"I don't know, it's awkward enough as it is." Samira started walking to Ginny's room.

"I just don't want to see you two like this, it's sad." Fred went down the hallway and disappeared behind the doorway.

She entered Ginny's room to find that they two girls were up still.

"hey Samira. Me and Hermione were wondering. If you still had that vial of Amortentia."

"I just want to check something." Hermione said quickly.

"um yeah, I never go anywhere without it." she made her way to her backpack. " never know when someone's going to give you a good deal for it. You should've heard the offers just before Slughorn's party." she pulled out the vial. Then it struck her.

She passed the vial to the two girls, Ginny uncorked it and took a small sniff of the potion.

"well?" Hermione asked.

"my likes haven't changed yet." she shrugged as she passed it to Hermione.

She took a sniff of it.

"well?" Ginny asked in a small teasing tone.

"the smell I dreaded is stronger now." she whined.

"is that bad?" Samira asked.

"in my case, yes."

Hermione gave the vial to Samira. "you know." Hermione began. "I never knew what you liked when you smelt Amortentia."

She sniffed in the potion's fumes. "I smell, my father's old pipe. The smell of freshly fallen rain and." she paused. She smelled something that was so familiar, she corked the bottle and quickly ran out the room.

"where re you going? Mum's going to do sleep inspections soon?" Ginny called after her.

Samira ran back to the door. "I'll be back, I just need to check something."

She knocked on the twins' door.

Fred answered the door. "hey Samira what're--"

"I need to talk to George." she said quickly.

"about time you two straighten this out." he said. "is mum doing sleeping inspections?"

"not yet."

"alright." he disappeared in the dark room, there was movement from inside.

Samira fidgeted with her clothes then she straightened as she saw George. "you wanted to talk?"

"yes, I feel like what happened at Slughorn's party was--"

"I know, I'm so sorry, it won't happen again. I didn't know what came over me."

"well… then I guess that's that."

"yep."

They stood in silence for a few awkward moments.

"well I got to go before your mom sees me, but I'm glad we sorted this out."

"me too." He hugged her.

She took a small sniff off him.

"I'll see you tomorrow." George parted and closed the door.

"oh shit." she said quietly to herself.

She didn't get a wink of sleep that night. She kept thinking the same thing over and over in her head.

_If the potion says I like him, then deep down in my subconscious I really do. _

She thought about the night at the Christmas party. _Why can't I remember what I was feeling then? _

she thought about today outside, and tonight in the living room. _I'm fucked. Why did this have to happen to me? Why did I have to fall in love with not only my friend, but my boss?_

Ginny shook her awake. "merry Christmas Samira!" she cheered.

Samira at up in bed and saw a packed stocking at her feet. She opened it to see that the twins gave her a few new products from Fred's store that she didn't see before. Ron gave her a few boxes of Bert's and Bott's every flavor beans. She laughed to herself as she unwrapped those.

Mrs. Weasley had knitted her a nice blue sweater, it was striped horizontally with darker blue. Which Samira quickly put on, a perfect fit.

They moved to the kitchen where they joined by everyone, all were wearing their own sweaters. Samira smiled as she saw George and Fred's sweaters. Mrs. Weasley showed off the gifts that her twin sons gave her. George said how much they came to appreciate her after living on their own.

A moment later a gravy boat was flying in the air.

"you're as bad as zat Tonks." Fleur said. "she's always knocking--"

"I invited _dear _Tonks to come along today." Mrs. Weasley said.

Samira grinned. Oh how she wished to see her again.

"but she couldn't come. Have you spoken to her lately Remus?" she asked Lupin.

"no, I haven't been in contact with anyone very much, well other than Samira." Lupin said. "but Tonks has got her own family to go to, hasn't she?"

"maybe. I got the impression she was planning to spend Christmas alone, actually." she gave a look towards Lupin.

Samira excused herself from the table after finishing her breakfast. She didn't feel like staying around while the Weasleys said hello to their son Percy who came in shortly afterwards with the minister.

She went upstairs and sat on her bed. She got dressed out of her pajama bottoms and into some comfortable jeans.

"hey." Ginny knocked on the door as she stuck her head in the room. "some of us were thinking about going into town, you want to come?"

"yeah I'll be there in a sec." she turned back to her bag, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and headed down stairs.

Everyone was already outside. "so where are we going?" she asked Fred.

"anywhere that's away from that prat." he motioned to the house.

The walk to town was loud, as the twins resumed their snow ball fight. Samira chose to sit out of that one, and laughed on the sidelines as Ron was hit right in the face by Fred. Ron fell to the ground.

"are you alright?" Fred sounded genuinely worried.

Ron shot up and nailed him in the face as well. "take that!" he yelled.

They stopped their game as they entered a small bookstore. It was completely deserted as they walked the aisles of dusty books. The counter girl smiled at the twins as they came up to her. "hi guys. How's your holiday?" she giggled.

"never been better." George said.

Samira looked away and looked over the shelves of books. She didn't really care about any of the books. She walked back to the lobby like clearing, there she saw a sight she wished she never saw. George was kissing the counter girl. Her eyes grew wide, and she felt her feet move by themselves out the door. She ran down the street.

"Samira?!" Ron ran after her, finally he caught up with her. "are you alright?"

She nodded. "yeah, you know I don't feel to good, I think that maybe I'm getting sick or something, I'm just going to head back early."

"do you need someone to come with you?"

"no. I'm perfectly fine." she started walking back to the burrow.

It was the first week after the Christmas break and Samira had to work at the shop alone with George. Claire had come down with a fever and was in the hospital wing.

Samira was still upset about what she saw at the bookstore and didn't really talk to George like she used to. Even when they made new potions.

But today was different, because today the last person that she wanted to see entered the store.

"hey mudblood." Draco greeted.

"can I help you with something?"

"no, I'm just looking." he stared at the shelves. Samira sat back behind the counter and waited for him to be gone.

"you look horrible. Are you sick?" Draco asked.

Before she answered he spoke again. "or did you look in the mirror?"

"I don't have time for you're crap right now, are you're going to buy something or not?"

"testy much?"

She glared at him.

"fine, I'll take a few of these." he put a couple of fanged Frisbees on the counter.

"that's sixteen sickles each."

He gave her the coins and started to head out the door. "you know." he turned to her. "there's a rumor going around that you and George Weasley got together before Christmas."

"they're just rumors." she looked down.

"that's what I thought." he grinned. "because it would look pretty bad if you lowered your expectations."

"what do you mean?"

"I mean that you dating Longbottom wasn't that bad. But you dating a Weasley is worst." he laughed.

"take that back! George is amazing, he's a hundred times the man you'll ever be!"

"sounds like you love him." he teased.

"well maybe I do!" the words came out of her mouth before she knew it. Her eyes widened as she covered her mouth.

Draco had a smug face. "like I said, you lowered your expectations." he left the store.

Samira's eyes started to tear, she kicked the inside of the counter. She her face in her hands as she started to cry again.

"are you alright?" George came out from the backroom, "I heard screaming."

"how much did you hear?" she quietly asked with out looking up at him.

"everything."

Her head shot up, her eyes widened even more. She ran into the backroom, almost hitting George on her way there, and threw her robe off.

"where are you going?" he asked.

"just leave me alone George." she sat on the steps that lead to the flat. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"well that's too bad, we're going to." George sat next to her. "what happened to you? After Christmas you don't talk to me and when you look at me you have this distance look on your face."

"you probably wouldn't remember even if I told you."

"try me."

"I saw you with her." she started to tear up again.

"with who?"

"the girl from the bookstore!" she yelled. "it was Christmas day, and we all went to town to get away, that's when saw you and the counter girl snogging." she buried her head in her arms.

She could feel George lean back. She heard him laughing.

"I don't think this is quite funny." she sniffed.

"no, that's not why I'm laughing." he put his arm around her. "I didn't kiss her."

"yes you did, I saw you." she looked at him.

"no, I didn't." he gave a warm smile. "I went with Ginny to find a book from Dean, Fred stayed with the counter girl. _Fred_ kissed her."

"do you honestly think that I would fall that?"

"ask her." George said. "she's at the three broomsticks."

"fine!" she said as she dabbed her eyes dry so that they weren't red and puffy.

She stormed out of the shop and headed to the three broomsticks. She found Ginny quickly and pulled her to the side. "Ginny, I need you to tell me something."

"anything what?"

"during Christmas, when we were at the book store did George help you find a book for Dean?"

"yeah, he helped a lot. Dean loved the book." she smiled. "why?"

"I got to go." Samira said almost out the door. "I just made a horrible mistake."

She entered the joke shop slowly, George was sitting at the counter. "I told you." he smiled. "I didn't kiss her."

"remind me to kill Fred the next time I see me." she said.

He gave a small laugh. "I'll be sure to do that." he got up and stood in front of Samira. "is what you yelled at Draco true?"

She looked down. "every word." Her heart beat a thousand beats a minute.

He put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She slowly did the same. he kissed the top of her head, then to her forehead. Samira lifted her head a little. He moved his hands to the sides of her face. He looked into her eyes. He kissed both her cheeks, one at a time, each time he would part from her skin he would make eye contact with her again. He kissed her nose and then, her lips. She closed her eyes and big tears rolled down her face. He parted and looked at her. "I don't' want to make you cry again." he brushed her tears away with his thumb.

She gave a small smile and leaned in and kissed him herself.


	15. the infirmary from hell

_I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long to finish (and sorry it's so short). But I've been grounded. So I hope you all forgive me.  
__This chapter is going to be dedicated to Ainulin and Dracoluvr18. These two readers have not only read every chapter so far, but they have reviewed my stories as well. They have given me constructive criticism and have told me that I have a talent for writing. Which, if I may be honest, never heard anyone say that to me before._  
_They both have told me when people have been OOC (out of character), and also reminded me of things that I have forgotten. So if you're reading this right now, thank you, you deserve this…..until next time, enjoy. SNB_

_Oh also…I didn't forget that Samira is a werewolf. She's been taking a wolfsbane potion. Just thought I'd add that. Sorry if anyone was confused there. ^^'_

Chapter 15

"George, I'm going now, I'll see you tomorrow." Samira put her robe on the hook and slipped out the back. "oh no." she said to herself. She slipped back inside the store and went to the front counter. She skimmed over the surface and saw it, her mother's ring. She grabbed it and put it on the finger. She looked around the store, George was nowhere to be found. She sneaked upstairs and looked around his flat, still he was no where. She smiled to herself and she decided that she was going to surprise him. She looked around the flat for a place to hide. She went into his room and saw a small broom closet that she knew he didn't use. She opened the door and crawled in. she laughed quietly to herself as she closed the door. Then a sound that she didn't predict happened, the door locked from the outside.

"oh no. no, no, no." she tried to open the door, she grabbed hold of the handle and pulled it, the door didn't budge. "George!" she yelled. "help me!" she pounded on the door and then the thought occurred to her.

_he thinks I'm gone now, he's probably at the three broomsticks._

She hit her forehead and sunk down against the wall. "this is what I get for trying to be a girlfriend." she sighed and waited for George to get back.

Noises awoke Samira from her sleep, she rolled her neck around, making it pop in many places. She placed a hand behind her neck and tried to soothe the kinks. Then she heard talking.

"I'm so glad that you were able to make it Fred."

"well the shop needed to be closed for awhile, I wasn't getting any business anyway." he laughed.

Samira knew he was faking his laugh. Something was wrong with him.

"so I heard you're with Samira now." Fred said.

"yeah, it was a few weeks after Christmas. You were right, she did like me." George sat down on his bed. "but thought you liked her? That's why I didn't do anything for the longest time."

"I did like her. I don't know, maybe I still do." he paused. "But I know you make her happy. So I'm just going to have to move on huh?" Fred leaned against the archway.

There was a very long silence, Samira thought that they left the room. "hello? Is anyone there?" she asked through the door.

"what the." George got up from his bed.

"is that Samira?" Fred asked.

Samira put her hands over her mouth. _Shit, shit, shit _was all she thought.

The door opened and George pulled her into his arms. "are you alright?" he asked her.

"yeah I'm fine." she caught her breath and looked up at George. "I just wanted to put something in the closet and it sort of locked behind me." she had thought about this lie the split second before he pulled her out. "I fell asleep, and I just woke up." she tried to fake a yawn.

"you should write to McGonagall about this George." Fred said.

"why? What time is it?" Samira stood up.

"it's almost midnight." George explained. "the gates to Hogwarts would be closed by now."

Her eyes widened. "I can't stay here. I need to head back now."

"it's too late for that love."

She laid her head on his shoulder. "I'll go and sleep on the couch."

"no." he said. "you're taking the bed. It's the least I could do. After all I should've fix that door earlier." he gave a smile and headed out the room with his brother.

"do you think she heard us?" Fred asked as George closed the door.

"wouldn't surprise me if she did." he laughed.

"It isn't funny." Fred nudged him.

George shook his head. "that's only because you don't get the humor in it yet."

Samira woke up in George's bed. She stretched her arms over her head and headed out of the room. The flat as alive with activity as the twins ran back and forth through rooms, up and down the stairs and back to where she stood.

"sorry, did we wake you?" George asked.

She shook her head. "what's going on?"

" After Quidditch game buyers." he said.

Samira went down stairs and put on her robe and headed into the front shop.

"Miss Faller, I'm glad that you were feeling better." Professor McGonagall said as she stood by the counter.

"thank you." she said with a small hint of confusion on her face.

"we told her you got sick and had to stay here." Fred whispered. "I don't think the truth would've work in this case." he gave a small laugh as he went through the store helping more customers.

George came up behind her and barely touched her hand in an attempt to hold it. She turned to him. "what is it?"

"nothing." he tried not to laugh.

"oh come on, tell me."

He pointed to where Fred was standing. Fred was flirting with a very beautiful seventh year who was trying to decide which pygmy puff she would buy.

"he sure bounces back fast doesn't he?" she laughed as she looked back at him. "it's just like summer again." she smiled.

"yeah it sure feels like it." he looked down.

"ok, something is definitely wrong. What is it?"

"it's Ron." he said.

Samira spent the day at the hospital wing where the whole Weasely lot sat at Ron's bed side.

"so you think that the poison was for Dumbledore?" she asked.

"that's more likely than most of the stories we've come up with." Fred said. "Slughorn was suppose to give the bottle to him at Christmas."

"poor Ron, the wrong place at the wrong time. Like always." George said.

She looked over Ron's sleeping body and put a hand on his. "he's going to be alright?"

"yeah, thanks to Harry." Ginny sat next to her sleeping brother.

A few moments later Mrs. and Mr. Weasley came in, and soon after that Madam Pomfrey asked that they limit the visitors to six.

Harry, Hermione and Hagrid left right after that.

George held onto Samira's hand as she began to walk away with the others. "I don't think I should stay." she began. "it feels weird that I'm here." she whispered to him. "I'm not his family."

"could you stay a little bit more. For me at least?"

She squeezed his hand and sat by his side.

The next few weeks were such a huge blur to Samira. She had signed up for the apparation lessons several weeks prior and was doing exceedingly better than the other kids. That wasn't saying much though, she was able to apparate to her hoop two times during all her lessons but something always seemed to go wrong.

Her first apparation was during the third week, she had concentrated for a good fifteen minutes before she felt the complete nothingness she felt when she was with Tonks. But when she landed in the circle she saw that she apparated into another boy's hoop instead of her own. The second time was better. It was in the later weeks, she appeared in her hoop, but with one of her arms missing.

She cheered up a bit as she headed down to the stadium for the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff game along with Claire. They headed down the bridge that led right to the stadium when they saw Draco and two girls passing them. He gave a small smirk to Claire while completely ignoring Samira.

"just forget him." Samira whispered to Claire as she locked arms with her.

They arrived as the commentators started announcing the players onto the field. Samira waved over to Fred and George who were waiting for them by the stairs.

"about time you showed up." Fred said as he and Claire started climbing the stairs to their seats.

George grabbed Samira hand and followed soon after.

"are you excited about the apparation test?" George asked.

"oh sure, I don't think I'm ready though." Samira said. "I've only been able to do it twice while most kids…" she trailed off. "well you know what I mean."

George gave her a warm smile. "I know you can do it. And if you can't, well they have extra lessons that you can take at Hogsmead."

She laughed as she took her seat. The quaffle had just been released, only to be caught by the Hufflepuffs.

"come on Ginny!" Fred yelled. "get that quaffle back!"

Samira listened to the commentary. "is that Luna Lovegood giving the commentary?" she asked George.

"I hope not." he laughed. "who would be crazy enough to give her a megaphone?"

She bit her lip to hold back her laugh. But as the game continued she realized that McGonagall was crazy enough too.

Ginny and Demelza scored shortly after Hufflepuff. Samira, Claire and the twins cheered along with the rest of the Gryffindors.

Most of the Gryffindors yelled as McLaggen grabbed one of the beater's bats and mishit a bludger right at Harry's head. He feel from his broom to the grassy ground.

Samira gasped. "do you think he'll be ok?" she grabbed hold of George's sleeve.

"of coarse he will." George wrapped his arm around her. "he's fallen from higher things." he watched as Harry being moved off the field.

"I think that McLaggen's going to be dead at the end of the night." Claire said as she pointed to the field.

And it was true, everyone could see that the team was beginning to give dirty looks to the keeper. Not to mention the people in the stands. It didn't help when the Hufflepuff's seeker grabbed the gold snitch to win the game 326 to 60.

"well other than us losing today, I actually enjoyed the game." Fred said as all four of them started to walk back to the school.

Samira held onto George's hand as they neared the school. "I don't want to go back to school, is there anyway I could fake being sick and stay with you again?" she asked George.

"as much as I would really like that." he whispered in her ear. "I think you should wait till the weekend."

She jokingly hung her head and George laughed to himself.

They were once again at the cross road between Hogsmead and Hogwarts.

"we're working this weekend right?" Claire asked George.

"yeah, make sure you two get there early."

They both nodded and headed to the school.

"I never thought that Fred could be so much fun." Claire said as she locked arms with Samira again.

Samira looked back to see George staring at her. He turned to Fred and began walking in the other direction.

"man I tell you." she heard Fred tell George. " the two guys that Harry replaced us with, are pretty good."

"I told you." George laughed.

Samira smiled to herself then turned back to Claire. "if I didn't know any better. I'd say you had a crush on Fred."

Claire's eyes widened. "I don't. I'm still trying to get over Draco."

"oh, yes, that pureblooded ferret boy still has your heart." she laughed. "it would really be funny though, to see his face if you told him you were with Fred."

"he'd be mortified." Claire laughed.

Samira left early in the morning for Hogsmead, she was surprised that Mr. Filch wasn't there as she walked towards the exit. Instead she was greeted by two sleepy Aurors, one of them being Tonks.

"good morning." Samira smiled as she handed her bag to the other Auror so that he could inspect it.

"you're up early." Tonks said, as she stretched.

"I got to work again." She smiled. "thought I would wake up the twins."

"later today, I'll stop by. Dumbledore asked us to looked around in Hogsmead, you know because of all the attacks that have been happening."

"I'll tell George you're coming." Samira grabbed her bag from the Auror and headed down to the small village.

The shop was busy as usual, Claire was helping a handful of third years that were checking out. Fred was, once again flirting with the seventh year that had come into the shop every day for the past three weeks.

"I think Fred has a potential girlfriend." George joked.

"I give them a month." Samira pull more potions on the shelf.

After she was done re- restocking the shelves she went back to the counter and helped Claire with her busy work.

"Samira."

She turned to see Seamus making his way through the crowd. He carried a small vial in his hand. "I need to show you this."

She grabbed the vial. "is this what I think it is?"

"yeah."

Her eyes widened. She was helping him with his potions work, basically making sure he didn't blow up anything, but as they went through all these different potions they realized that they needed a difficult potion in order to have Seamus pass the class, that's when they found the ultimate potion. It was a small transfiguration potion, not like polyjuice, but something almost like it. It was hard to make, and if you didn't make it just right, well let's just say that Seamus' reputation wouldn't be harmed.

"go into the back room." Samira told him handing him back the vial. "I'll be in soon."

Seamus ducked out of the front room and into the back. Samira turned to George. "I have to help Seamus, I'll be back."

He nodded to her. And she left for the back.

"let's see that potion." she took off her apron and looked at the vial. "did you do everything that the book told you to?"

"to the very last detail." Seamus assured. "it shouldn't explode."

Samira held her breath as she poured the contents into a cauldron. Nothing happened. "that's strange, it should've glowed a dark green." she looked over the cauldron. "well, it's back to the drawing board."

"maybe if we add more Fwooper feathers." Seamus grabbed a jar and poured it over the potion.

"no don't!" Samira cried.

But it was to late, Seamus had, once again, made a critical mistake and in seconds, the potion was over flowing with a black foam. As soon as the foam touched the wooden floor it exploded.

Samira woke up in the hospital wing, Seamus was laying in the next bed over. She looked around her. George was at the entrance talking to Claire and Fred.

She gave a small laugh as she saw Ron sitting up in bed across form her talking to Harry just beside him.

"hey Samira." Seamus quietly said.

"hey." she said weakly. "what happened?"

"apparently, the Fwooper feathers didn't take to the potion well."

They both chuckled a bit. George heard them, he turned to them and headed towards Samira's bed. "how do you feel?"

"I'm fine." she smiled at him and held on to his hand. "I just a little tired that's all."

George breathed a sigh of relief. "that's good, madam Pomfrey thought that you might be out for awhile."

"did she say when I can leave?"

He shook his head.

"great." she rolled her eyes. "yet another week wasted in the infirmary

from hell."

"it can't be that bad." He laughed.

"it's one week away from you."

He kissed her forehead. "don't worry, I'll come by everyday to make sure you're not lonely."

"what? Me lonely? With these guys here?" she nodded over to Ron and Harry. "it will be heavenly."

"just try to get better. Snape might not count this as an excused absence anymore, I mean you do have a streak starting now."


End file.
